


Cradle her in darkness, love her in light

by LaDeeDa



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, BAMF Demon Woman falls hard for Soft Human Woman, Demon Sex, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Dream Sex, Dumb demon BFF that helps them get together, F/F, Face-Sitting, Fallen Angels, Forbidden Love, Forced Orgasm, Happy Ending, Lesbian Character of Color, Lesbian Sex, Lesbians, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Oral Sex, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Somnophilia, Strap-Ons, accidentally falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24235150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaDeeDa/pseuds/LaDeeDa
Summary: One night stands were not Tara’s usual scene. Once Ava locked eyes with her for the first time though, a dark and hungry gaze that promised trouble, Tara simply couldn’t fight the magnetic pull.Tara is a young human woman who works at a coffee house and dresses almost exclusively in fluffy, pastel clothing. There isn’t too much she worries about outside of bathroom cleaning duty.Ava is a demon attempting to live in the human realm with the help of an underground network of both her brethren and fallen angels. Escaping Hell was rough, and until now it was the hardest feat she had ever accomplished. The rule she had lived by to keep herself as a free woman was not to get too close to humans, and so far it had worked perfectly for her. Unfortunately, some of them are too cute to resist.
Relationships: Original Demon Character(s)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 80
Kudos: 161





	1. Chapter 1

Tara’s scream was muffled by the chunk of pillow stuffed between her lips. The sound did not halt Ava’s deep thrusts, the silicone strap-on hitting so hard into Tara’s dripping cunt that she was genuinely struggling to catch her breath. Even though she knew it was coming, the force of it still knocked the air out of her every single time.

Never in Tara’s life had she been so wet. Never in her life had she felt so enraptured by another human being. Never in her life has she been fucked so thoroughly.

One night stands were not Tara’s usual scene. Once Ava locked eyes with her for the first time though, a dark and hungry gaze that promised trouble, Tara simply couldn’t fight the magnetic pull.

When Tara came this time her back arched off the bed as though she were the subject of an exorcism and her vision blurred around the edges. By the time her body had fallen back to the sheets she had also fallen into unconsciousness.

[6 HOURS EARLIER]

“Something caught your eye?” Shawn teased with a knowing grin.

Tara jolted and an uncomfortable warmth spread over her skin, she was mortified to have been caught staring.

The woman had glanced at her first ,though. She had felt it prickling at her skin as she sipped on her far-too-strong drink. She had followed the hot feeling back to the source: a pair of black eyes that appeared to flash red momentarily under the dim lights. They belonged to a cat-like woman lounging in a shabby armchair that was tucked into the very furthest corner of the room. Tara had felt frozen beneath her gaze, unable to move or blink or think of anything but _her_. The woman turned away, breaking the spell that had held her.

Tara swallowed awkwardly. “Is she a friend of yours?” A stupid question, really, given that it was Shawn’s party.

“We go way back,” he said with a conspirational wink, “want me to recommend you?”

“Well, um-”

“Your wish is my command,” he interjected with a mock bow, and swiftly headed towards the woman in the armchair. Tara garbled something intelligible about not wanting to bother anyone, but if he heard her, he ignored her.

Once he was at the side of the chair, Shawn leant in close to the woman’s ear, but Tara could still see his mouth moving, his eyes flickering from the woman’s profile to Tara’s blushing face with a sly grin. Then he pointed at her, like she was an item of interest in a shop window! As the woman turned her head to follow the direction of his finger, Tara swivelled on the spot, turning her back on the pair. She put her plastic cup to her lips and attempted to nod along with the girls who had been stood behind her. She was now at the edge of their small huddle. She was fairly sure the topic of conversation had something to do with boys.

Shawn dragged her out of the small herd by the elbow and whispered into her ear, “did you turn around to show her your cute butt? Cause I think it worked!”

“I turned away because you were embarrassing me!” Tara hissed.

She twisted halfway back to him, and there she was, the woman.

“Hey,” she said dully. Her eyes were half lidded and she held a plastic cup by its rim with one hand.

“Hi,” Tara breathed nervously, “I’m Tara.”

“Ava.”

Tara fought the urge to swallow. “Is that… short for something?” she asked awkwardly. Normally, Tara felt she was pretty adept at making conversation, however, this was clearly not a skill she was broadcasting to this tall woman with the sexy voice. Ava’s eyes were too intense, they were making her sweat. Would it be considered socially strange to pant? Tara felt like she was not getting enough oxygen all of a sudden.

“Nope.” Ava’s short shutting down of Tara’s attempt to chit-chat stumped her, and her brain could suddenly no longer find words for her.

The pause that grew between them felt incredibly tense to Tara, but if Ava was uncomfortable with the lack of small talk, she didn’t show it. Although she was the one to break it eventually.

“Shawn, how about you find something to do that isn’t here.” The way she said his name was strange, there was a teasing edge to her tone like that you’d use on a nickname. Maybe the alcohol was making Tara over-think, it did that a lot. Regardless, Shawn snorted, shook his head, and left them to mingle with his other guests. “He said you were checking me out,” Ava added with a confident smirk.

“Maybe a little,” Tara admitted, bringing her cup to her lips as a partial covering to hide her embarrassed expression behind.

“I was planning on leaving soon, come with me?” It should have been a question, but to Tara it sounded like an order, one that she needed to follow.

And that was how she had found herself laying like a limp noodle in Ava’s king-size; muscles aching and light-coloured bruises raising around her waist, thighs and wrists. She was dehydrated, and fatigued to a degree that it was as though she hadn’t slept at all. But she must have, because sunlight was warming her exposed skin and causing her eyes to sting as she fought to hold them open to survey her fragile body. Tara was no stranger to rough sex, she enjoyed a bit of kinkiness too, but what she had experienced with Ava… None of her previous partners could compare in any category. Could you have a spiritual experience if you weren’t religious? Tara wasn’t certain, but she had felt very sinful last night.

With the sound of approaching footsteps on wood floor, she scurried to cover herself with the wrinkled sheets hanging over the edge of the bed. Ava opened the door and leaned against the doorway with a lazy ease.

“I have seen every inch of you already,” she said with raised brows and hooded eyes.

“It feels different in daylight,” Tara mumbled as her excuse for pulling the sheets to her clavicle.

Ava shrugged. “Well, while you are naked, feel free to use the bathroom through that door.” She nodded at the en suite.

“Thanks,” Tara croaked, “I think I’ll take a quick shower and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Take your time, you were out cold for a long time.”

Tara’s body grew a few degrees warmer in humiliation, she had never passed out during sex before. She still wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or over-stimulation from that last orgasm.

She managed to get a choked sound of gratitude out and Ava left with a half-grin.

On her way to the bathroom, Tara scooped up her outfit from the night before: an oversized pink t-shirt dress with frilled sleeves and a very small slit on the right side, white underwear, and a pair of pink lace-up trainers, one of which had somehow made its way under Ava’s bedside table.

In the shower she found a half-empty bottle of grapefruit shower gel and a two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.

“I think the fuck not,” Tara whispered to herself. Ava may be able to slap whatever she wanted onto her straight, untextured hair, but Tara would have to wait until she got home to clean her own 4A coils. She had been tricked by those two-in-one bottles before, they were moisture destroyers.

She would have to leave her hair up in the puffs she had scraped them into the day before and simply do her best to keep from getting hit in the face by the shower spray. They were looking slightly less symmetrical than they had when she had left her apartment on her way to Shawn’s, but only if you knew how perfect they had looked before. It probably wasn’t obvious that she had managed to avoid hair wash day for… an amount of time she would not like to disclose for the sake of her mother finding out.

As she lathered her body with the grapefruit shower gel, she took extra time to poke and prod at her new collection of bruises. It blew her mind that she had not felt any pain in any of the darkened spots when she was writhing beneath Ava last night.

She dried herself quickly and slipped back into her party outfit. From what she remembered in her tipsy state last night, she wasn’t far from her apartment, so walking home wouldn’t be too shameful. The quicker she left, the quicker she would be in her own living room giving Daisy a full report on what had happened.

Ava’s living room was uncluttered, but the decorative items she did have on display all appeared to be handmade trinkets or keepsakes: a set of roughly carved wooden elephants, a framed square of material with wonky embroidered flowers, a small glass sculpture in the shape of a voluptuous woman’s body with no head. Tara wished she could take a closer look, to admire the mismatched collection of items, but Ava had been observing her from the kitchenette since she left the bedroom. The tall woman was leant forward with her stomach pressed against the counter and her hands fiddling with a metal spoon that appeared to have become bent out of shape.

Tara snatched her sparkly clutch from the couch where she and Ava had been passionately kissing and clawing at each other the night prior. The memory made her palms sweat a little, and she smiled awkwardly at the woman as she walked past her towards the front door. The heat in her black eyes gave Tara the strangest feeling that she was listening to her thoughts, that she knew exactly which steamy scene just passed through Tara’s mind.

“You want a snack to take with you?” Ava asked softly.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Tara mumbled with an embarrassed smile. She was not experienced with the walk of shame and would rather get on with it than linger past her welcome.

“Get home safe.”

“You too,” Tara blurted automatically, her nervous brain on autopilot. “I mean, you are home, so…” she spluttered as she realised what she had said.

Ava gave a huffing laugh. “Don’t worry, your brain just got a bit rattled in your skull last night. You’ll be able to think straight in a few hours,” she said with a smirk.

“Thanks,” Tara squeaked and let herself out the front door.


	2. Chapter 2

Tara smoothed her black uniform apron self-consciously, wishing she had worn a less… comfortable outfit beneath. Her pink denim pinafore dress reached her knees and then her legs were bare to her ankles, where her frilled pink socks lead into her trainers. The long sleeves of her thick, white sweater had been folded tightly up to her elbows to free her hands and lower arms for her duties.

A few minutes prior, Ava had walked into Jessi’s Java, Tara and Shawn’s workplace. Tara knew it was not coincidence, she had never seen Ava in the coffee house before the party. She would have remembered a woman like that - would have memorised her order to heart. When Shawn had interrogated her that morning for details on her night of passion with his friend, he had been very pushy in his opinion that Tara should follow up the encounter. Tara had countered this view over and over with the simple fact that she didn’t have Ava’s number and knew nothing of her but her address - and she was no stalker.

Tara had no doubt that Shawn was behind Ava’s sudden craving for a cup of joe.

Shawn chatted with her cheerfully as he took her order, laughing at his own jokes as he always did. Ava cracked a few grins though, and her smile had an edge to it that Shawn’s didn’t.

The order ticket popped up and Tara snatched it a little too excitedly, ripping the bottom of the paper in a wonky line. She kept her eyes on her work as she made the simple drink: a flat black coffee. She had heard Shawn attempting to convince her into adding some syrup flavouring but Ava had firmly refused.

Once the take-out cup was sealed, Tara placed it on the collection counter with a napkin and gave Ava a small wave to let her know it was ready. The woman wrapped up her conversation with Shawn and strode over smoothly.

“Hey, Ava,” Tara said, hating herself for how overly chirpy she sounded.

“Hey,” Ava replied with a barely-there smile and a nod.

Shawn’s eyes were burning into her, urging her not to let the conversation die before its time.

“How’ve you been?”

She took a long sip of her scalding coffee without registering any discomfort on her face. “Good, you?” she asked pleasantly.

“Yeah,” Tara answered slowly. “Fully recovered from the weekend.” She laughed awkwardly

Ava’s hands paused as she brought the cup to her lips again, leaving it hovering just below the dip of her chin. “I hope I wasn’t too rough,” she said a small smirk. Tara couldn’t tell if she was flirting or genuinely laughing at her.

“N-no, I had a lot of fun,” she mumbled.

Ava nodded and took another deep drink. “Good.”

The crunch of the cardboard cup being crushed in Ava’s palm made Tara jolt. It landed in their recycling bin with an easy flick of her palm, despite its location on the other side of the room. Tara would never even attempt such a long shot. A huff of laughter from the direction of the till reminded her of Shawn’s presence, apparently he wasn’t as impressed as Tara was at the display of athleticism.

Ava turned to leave and Tara’s heart jumped into her throat.

“W-wait!” she blurted. “I… I wanted to ask you, um-”

“I don’t do relationships,” Ava advised monotonously.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, kid.”

Tara flushed, she was not a kid!

“That was not what I was going to ask!” She huffed.

A few beats of tense silence passed between them.

“Well?” Ava said dully.

Tara folded her arms over her chest and tilted her face away. “Perhaps I don’t want to ask now.”

With jarring speed, Ava leant in, caught her chin between two fingers and dragged her line of sight back to meet her sharp eyes. “Oh, come on, don’t tease me.” Her voice had turned sultry and it sent a shiver along the skin of Tara’s back.

Suddenly, trapped in Ava’s gaze, Tara didn’t seem to have the choice to stay silent, she was already answering obediently. “I was going to ask if you wanted to do what we did again.”

“Fuck?”

The expletive surprised Tara, she jerked her face out of Ava’s hand and looked away awkwardly, when it was said so bluntly it made her feel embarrassed for talking about sex in her place of work.

“I wasn’t planning to ask to be your girlfriend,” Tara lied sulkily, hoping to get through this awkward conversation far more quickly than they currently were. “I was going to ask to be friends… with benefits.”

“That’s more interesting,”Ava murmured. She observed Tara for a moment, black eyes roaming over her slowly and the slightest smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Give me your phone,” she ordered with her hand out.

Tara placed her phone in the woman’s palm, it unlocked to the home screen without her putting in the pin-code, but she assumed it was a glitch, it wasn’t exactly the latest model.

Ava added herself as a contact and handed it back. Without another word she turned, nodded to Shawn who gave her a cheeky salute in return, and left the coffee house. She didn’t look back.

“She gave you her number?!” Shawn asked incredulously. He was at her side in an instant.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Tara asked suspiciously.

“Ava is… not the type to try the same flavour of ice cream twice… if you get my drift.”

“Then why did you encourage me to try to talk to her again?”

Shawn had the grace to turn his grin into an apologetic one. “I was hoping she would give you a chance because I think you would make a cute couple,” he explained. “You’re so sweet and cute, I’m hoping you can soften her up a little.” The complimentary addition sent a flush to Tara’s cheeks.

“We’re not going to be a couple, we’re just gonna… maybe…”

“Oh?”

Tara floundered for the right words for a few moments. When she couldn’t find any, she decided to pass the responsibility to Ava instead. “You’re her friend, ask her.”

Quietly, Shawn said, “I don’t judge people for their sex lives, Tara.”

“Thanks.”

“I do judge them for not doing their bathroom check on time though,” he added cheerfully.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

~

The back door of Jessi’s Java shuddered open as always, requiring Tara to throw her full weight against it in order to go home for the day. She was on the closing shift for the next few days and she would certainly feel it in her biceps by the end of the week. The back of the coffee house led into a tight alleyway that held a scattering of cardboard boxes and chunks of who-knew-what that had fallen from the local business’ bins when they were collected each week. Tara trotted around the debris carefully, but was not quite as eagle-eyed when she stepped out into the main road that the alleyway was connected to.

Technically, and she held on to this technicality for many years to come, she would not have been in any danger crossing the road if it weren’t for the careless driver. She was halfway to the other side when the headlights appeared, rounding the corner at break-neck speed and barrelling towards her. For some reason, they did not slow. Even when she turned to face the car head-on in the brief moment before it reached her.

At a loss for how to protect herself, Tara squeezed her eyes shut.

Miraculously, it seemed to work. The sensation of a large drop on a roller-coaster, loud disgruntled honking, and the squeeze of strong hands around her waist and hips all occurred simultaneously. Still, she did not open her eyes. She was probably dead, that was why it didn’t hurt.

“Are you going to vomit?” a familiar voice asked. Tara could hear the smirk without needing her eyes open. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive but these are new shoes.”

Tara groaned in embarrassment. “I’m not going to be sick,” she said quietly as she finally peeled her eyes open. She had reached the side of the road she had been aiming for. “What the-” Ava’s hands were holding her firmly. The car was gone. She was fairly sure she was still alive. Ava’s body was overly warm against her own despite the cool temperature of the air around them. The night was dark and quiet. She _was_ still alive. “How did-”

“I was on this side already,” Ava supplied quickly, “I saw that maniac speeding down the road towards you and gave your sweater a yank.” Tara was fairly sure she heard her mutter, “fucking drunk drivers,” as well but ignored that last part, there was no way for them to know if the driver was drunk or not.

“Thank you,” Tara breathed sincerely. As she stared into Ava’s black eyes she hoped that in some way she could communicate the gratitude she felt. “You saved my life.”

A short and quiet laugh rumbled in Ava’s throat, there was a dark edge to it that made Tara shiver. As though the situation amused her in some twisted way. “Don’t thank me,” she said sternly. “In fact, I’d appreciate it if you told no one about this.” She pushed Tara away as she spoke to hold her at arms-length.

“Um, sure,” Tara agreed, at a loss for what else she could say to that strange request. Perhaps Ava was simply incredibly modest? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be here tonight… Why was she walking past the back of the coffee house at this time at night? Tara decided it was best not to ask. “Will you let me pay you back though? I can’t afford a life, but maybe dinner?”

Ava’s eyes had turned a flat black, no emotion to be found as she mulled over the offer. It was incredibly disconcerting and Tara found herself squirming under the steady gaze.

“Fine, but not tonight,” she said darkly.

“Okay… I’ll text you?”

“You do that.”

They separated quickly, Tara walking in one direction and Ava taking the opposite. After counting out fifty steps, Tara paused and pulled out her phone.

_Tomorrow night?_ She texted to Ava’s number.

A distant chuckle reached her ears, sending a flush to her cheeks. Tara stood still as she awaited the reply.

_Ava: Sure._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible dubcon/noncon in this chapter but I am unsure whether to call it that. For more details (including spoilers) please read below. Otherwise, please feel free to skip the rest of this note and enjoy the chapter!  
> ** SPOILERS **  
> As a demon, Ava has a handful of special abilities/powers she can use on humans. One of these is entering their dreams / manipulating the themes and locations of dreams. Ava uses this to enter Tara’s dream and has sex with her. Tara is fully aware of the act and participates with Ava, but believes this is simply a dream. It feels very real but she is of the understanding that it’s not. So, she consents to having sex with dream-Ava, but is not aware it is the real Ava. Therefore, Ava is technically taking advantage of her while she’s asleep.  
> ** SPOILERS END **

Dinner was arranged for seven at a small Italian restaurant down the street from Jessi’s Java.

Tara had packed an extra outfit into her bag that morning (approved by her best friend Daisy beforehand, of course), and she changed into it the moment her shift was over. Fluffy baby blue sweater, blue jeans with embroidered white flowers and white trainers.

Ava was standing outside the restaurant, still as a statue, when Tara crossed the street.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I-I know that this isn’t a date,” Tara blurted nervously.

Ava’s eyes grazed over her hungrily. “Why do you look so cute then?”

Tara flushed, opened her mouth a little, and froze.

Ava’s short and sharp laugh knocked her soul back into her body. She managed to close her mouth and winced a little.

“I am teasing you. I am glad I don’t have to remind you that I don’t do relationships.”

“I guess I’m a quick learner,” Tara mumbled.

“Mmm, very puppy-like, I would say.”

“I’ll take it,” said Tara, pushing the glass door of the restaurant open. “There are worse things you could say about me.”

Ava didn’t respond but followed her inside. The dining area was warm, filled with yellow light and calorific smells. Tara could feel herself gaining ten pounds from the thick scent of carbs alone. There were a few couples dotted about and they were given a small table just far enough apart from them to have some privacy.

Ava flicked through the menu incredibly quickly, her black eyes zipping down each page with ease. Tara wondered if she was trying to get the night over with. The thought made her feel a little nauseated with embarrassment. When Ava had raced through every single page, she put the menu to the table, closed it, and glanced up to Tara’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Ava asked with a concerned frown.

Tara shrugged and continued looking at her own menu. Ava watched her for a few moments, her eyes were softer than usual.

Finally, she said, “Do you mind if we get starters? I’m starving.”

“Oh, s-sure,” Tara agreed without thinking. “You’ve decided what you want already?”

Ava tapped her menu twice with her finger. “Yeah, I don’t like to waste any time when it comes to food,” she said with a half-grin showing a pointed canine.

“I-I’ll hurry up then.”

“Don’t feel pressured,” said Ava coolly.

Their waiter meandered over a few minutes later to take their orders and then returned shortly afterwards with water and breadsticks.

Tara made her first swing for casual conversation as she nibbled on a bread stick. “So, what do you do? Shawn never told me.”

Ava took a deep sip of her water before settling in to answer. “I work freelance at a garage mainly, but I also pick up the occasional bartending shift when I’m needed. My roommate works at the bar on our street, and they’re understaffed just about every night. She always manages to rope me in when they’re at their most desperate.”

There was a warm feeling that spread through Tara as she congratulated herself for a good question choice. This was the longest she had ever heard Ava speak in one go, and it was fascinating. She supposed, with her toned arms and don’t-fuck-with-me demeanour, Ava would fit in very well in the garage environment.

“I can imagine you in a garage, but a bar? Not so much.”

Ava tilted her head with an _almost_ innocent expression. “Why’s that?”

“You can be a little… intimidating,” Tara confessed slowly.

“Why do you think she asks me?” Ava laughed quietly. “When they have the least amount of staff is when they have the most amount of trouble with drunk men acting like fools.”

“Isn’t that scary?” Tara whispered. Drunken brawls existed in an entirely different world to the one she lived in. She went to bars and clubs occasionally with her friends, but not the kind where there was any crazy behaviour. Maybe the odd middle-aged woman toppling over after a few too many cocktails.

“Not really; they’re pretty easy to subdue when they’re that drunk.” With the aggressive flash that crossed Ava’s black eyes as she answered, Tara suddenly understood why Ava was the person you would call for wrangling violent drunks. It gave her a mild chill in the warm room.

She blinked a couple of times to clear her head. “Oh,” she said flatly.

Their starters were plopped in front of them, and they thanked the waiter in unison. He smiled, nodded, and left them to it.

Tara’s tricolore salad was twice the size she had been expecting, but she dug in dutifully and it tasted amazing. Ava had calamari.

“I could eat tomatoes and cheese for every meal for the rest of my life!” Tara announced after inhaling the first quarter of the plate.

“Really? I heard it was common for you to be intolerant of dairy?”

Tara paused to process the strange statement before asking, “Me?” She was not lactose intolerant as far as she knew.

“Apologies, I meant people.”

“I guess a lot of people are lactose intolerant,” Tara agreed, doing her damndest to hide her confusion at the strange topic they had fallen into. “Are you?”

“No, I can eat anything.” There was a dark edge to her tone that sat somewhere between threat and flirt. It did not fit the context of her words at all.

“Anything?”

“I’m saying that I can, not that I would like to,” Ava corrected with a grin.

“Well, I guess what they say is true - you can eat anything but some things you can only eat once!” Tara agreed.

The expression on Ava’s face was unclear but Tara got the impression she found her amusing; although, not for her words.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just like hearing the strange things you come out with.”

“Thanks, I think.”

They discussed far more common subjects for the rest of their meal: Tara’s family, where she had grown up, previous jobs, her roommate Daisy, her favourite places in town, and her time at Jessi’s Java (including a few of her favourite stories involving Shawn and crazy customers).

Although their conversations felt incredibly Tara-centric, she did manage to get a few more tidbits of information about Ava when she pushed back. Only around one in every five questions she asked about Ava’s life got a clear answer; many did not get an answer at all. She held onto the little she had learned, though: Ava has no family (both her parents had passed away); she has known Shawn for ‘a long time’, and she had only lived in the area for a couple of years. Before her current home, she said she had lived in a town that Tara wouldn’t have heard of, but it was a ‘shithole’.

Ava insisted on walking her home after they stepped out of the comforting warmth of the restaurant and out into the crisp night air. Autumn was approaching so quickly; Tara was dreading the massive influx of customers the season always brought to coffee shops. She used to love pumpkin-flavoured snacks and drinks…

She allowed Ava to lead her down dark roads and through dingy alleyways, still enquiring after more of Tara’s background. Tara answered as well as she could, describing the bushy family tree she came from with numerous cousins and great-uncles, the shops she liked to buy her clothes from, the kind of cakes that she found hardest to resist at work…

Her apartment building appeared before her, and Tara stumbled to a stop as she finally took a moment to wonder how Ava had known where she was going.

“How did you know where I live?” she asked.

“I was following _you_ ,” Ava chuckled with obnoxious disbelief.

Tara thought of the route they had taken. It was not the way she usually walked home from work, and the restaurant was on the same street as Jessi’s Java.

Was there any reason to disagree, though? Did she want to end a nice night with a squabble?

Tara made a soft ‘hmm’ noise and shrugged.

“And there I thought we had a good evening, but if you want to accuse me of being a stalker…”

Tara stammered and babbled in apology, but Ava simply laughed at her, pinched her cheek tightly and used it to give her head a gentle shake.

“Don’t send yourself into shock on my account, Tara.”

Hearing Ava say her name sent a little tingle along her neck, but she managed to suppress the shiver that almost followed.

When Ava let go of her cheek, she managed to find her words. “I… I had a good evening, too.”

“Good. I’ll text you.”

“’kay,” Tara mumbled.

Tara watched her walk away until she got to the end of the street, then she slipped inside. Her phone buzzed with a text.

_Ava: Stalker_

Tara flushed and fell back against the closed door of the building. How had she known Tara was watching her? She didn’t text back.

After a very speedy debrief with Daisy, Tara got washed and dressed for bed. She had work in the morning and no time for a long dissection of every single moment that had passed between them on their not-date.

It did not take long for her to fall asleep, thankfully. She had been expecting to have more trouble as the scenes of the night flickered past her closed eyes, that she would be scrutinising every word that had come out of her mouth and worrying over every one of Ava’s reactions to her actions. Instead, she fell into the land of dreams within a few minutes.

She dreamt of Ava.

The room’s walls were formed of thick clouds of black smoke that Tara knew instinctively she would not be able to pass through. A double bed dressed in black silk sheets and pillows sat in the centre of the bare wooden floor. Tara climbed aboard and picked up a pillow, squeezing it between her hands curiously. She had never had a lucid dream before, but she had read about them. Wasn’t she supposed to be capable of manifesting whatever she wanted in a lucid dream? As she began to muse over what she would choose to draw into being, a shadowy figure approached through the smoke.

Black eyes. Tall, toned figure. Black clothes that accentuated the lines of her well-trained muscles. Half a smile with a pointed canine shining. Ava entered the space with graceful strides, the confidence in her gait that of a predator about to play with its prey.

A quiver ran through Tara’s thighs involuntarily, and a throb rang through her vulva as Ava stalked towards the bed. She clutched the pillow to her chest like a shield when Ava leapt onto the sheets and dropped to her knees in front of her. She leant in, hovering just before pressing their lips together, allowing Tara to be the one to close the distance, crushing their mouths together enthusiastically. Tara figured it didn’t matter if she were embarrassingly eager in her dreams; no one would ever know. The Ava of her dream laughed into her mouth and squeezed her face between her strong hands. They broke apart, Tara panting and Ava grinning wildly.

The pillow was pulled firmly, and Tara unclenched her hands from its edges, allowing its removal to leave her bared under Ava’s eyes. She glanced down, curious as to what she was wearing. She had gone to bed in soft cotton shorts and a baggy shirt. Now she had a white night dress covering her to the knees, and no underwear that she could feel.

Ava used a single hand to press her down by the chest, flattening her into the sheets. Not a word was spoken between them as she dragged the hem of the delicate night dress up to Tara’s waist, pushed her legs apart and swept a firm and flat-tongued lick from her vagina to clit. Tara let out a short huff at the warm-up lick; slow and steady wasn’t what she needed - especially not when she could wake up any minute. Did dream time pass at the same speed as real time? What if her alarm went o-

A much more direct curl of Ava’s tongue brought Tara’s thoughts to a halt. Warm pleasure rippled through her when it was followed by another, and another. Her knees jerked together as the pointed, digging tongue overwhelmed her. Ava was quick to push them down, squeezing the flesh of her thick thighs once between her fingers in warning. Tara did her best to keep them down as her clit and lips were ravaged by Ava’s devilish tongue. But it was made impossible for her to succeed when a gentle bite to the sensitive skin of her outer labia sent a jerk of motion from her toes to her thighs to her spine where it jumped, lifting her off the bed for a few seconds. She gasped and squeaked Ava’s name.

Ava ignored her, grabbing her backside between her hands, and pressing her face in deeper, giving herself access to every inch of Tara’s most tender areas. Tara’s body struggled a little against the strong hold, overstimulated and unable to control itself any longer. Ava pressed the wide muscle of her tongue so hard into Tara’s folds with each stroke, the smaller woman could no longer remember how to speak actual words. All that could be pulled from her lips were high-pitched whines and strangled sounds of shock.

Just as Tara could feel the white-hot pricks of her climax running over her sopping skin, Ava pulled back. A sob-like cry burst out of Tara without her intention and Ava chuckled darkly. Taking Tara by the knees, her large hands curled around them fully this time, she pulled her further down the bed and crawled over her, winked, and turned her body to lay her own dripping slit over Tara’s face.

Tara’s mouth fell open without thought, eager for a taste. When she got it, she ate with vigour. She latched her lips over Ava’s, sucking on the outside of her vulva and flicking her tongue against her clit with all the force she had in her. It was difficult to tell how much of the slick was from Ava’s arousal and how much was Tara’s diligent efforts to lick every inch of her.

Two fingers entered her in one wet stroke and her body heaved a little off the bed again, moaning into Ava’s cunt. They were dragged out and slammed back in to the knuckle. In and out. In and out. Tara couldn’t keep her feet still, they kicked at the sheets beneath her with every forceful thrust. She was so close, and she needed it so much. Ava dropped her hips back a little, rocking herself onto Tara’s face and groaning deeply. The fingers didn’t stop, and Tara didn’t want them to, not when she was so close. She couldn’t bear for Ava to stop again. When the pad of Ava’s thumb ground into her clit, she was sent hurtling into the void of orgasm. The combination of Ava on her lips, inside of her, stroking at her… it was all too much.

Tara awoke with a shuddering gasp. Her body was covered in sweat; her muscles were tensed, and her hands were trembling. Between her legs she could feel her panties were soaked, slick spread over her inner thighs. An ache pulled at her inner walls, as though something had been roughly shoved inside. In and out. In and out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by Rebelrsr, thank you so much! <3


	4. Chapter 4

“We’ve all done weird shit in our sleep, Tara,” Daisy reassured her with barely contained amusement. She had thoroughly enjoyed Tara’s retelling of her strange night. Despite how serious and thoughtful she attempted to seem, Tara knew when her best friend was on the brink of one of her signature cackles.

“You think I fingered myself in my sleep?”

“I’ve woken up from a sexy dream cupping my own boob before!”

“That’s not quite the same as getting your hand under your shorts, and your panties, and then inside of you! Plus, you sleep in tank tops, so your boobs are always falling out the sides.”

“Look, if it happens again, then you know you’re a nymphomaniac. If not, don’t worry!”

“My jaw is kinda sore, too,” Tara mumbled, half-hoping Daisy wouldn’t hear the admission.

Her roommate cackled. “Maybe you were giving head to a crease in your pillow! Any saliva in your elbow crack?” She laughed raucously at her own suggestions before returning to her smoothie-making. Super healthy smoothies were her newest nutritional obsession. Daisy was determined to treat her body well; she just couldn’t seem to decide how to do that. And she also couldn’t stay away from wine, despite Tara’s insistence that of all the health stunts she could attempt, dry January would probably bring her the most genuine benefit. The amount of wine she consumed never passed two bottles in a week, but it was the frequency that occasionally had Tara scolding her friend and roommate out of worry for her liver.

Tara grumbled, “Whatever. I need to get ready for work.”

Daisy waved over her shoulder as Tara retreated to her bedroom to get washed and dressed for the long shift she had ahead of her. As she left the flat, she said a silent prayer to anyone that would listen that Shawn wouldn’t ask her any torturous questions.

There was no interrogation when she arrived at work, but her colleague’s mischievous smile warned he may know more than she would like.

Around lunchtime, Ava texted Tara to arrange a hook-up in two days. Of course, a small part of her was disappointed that it wasn’t a romantic ‘let’s go out!’ text. But this is what she had suggested, right? Friends with benefits…

She messaged back far too quickly.

_Tara: Sure, I’ll see you then._

~

She arrived at Ava’s apartment a few minutes early. Her roommate, the one she said worked at the bar, answered the door. Ava had not mentioned that her roommate was six feet tall and built like one of the wrestling figurines Tara’s uncle collected.

“H-hi,” Tara garbled. “I’m, uh, Tara.”

The woman smiled kindly and stepped back to let her in. She had the same aura of restrained strength that Ava did, as though she had to put a great deal of effort into not moving too quickly or slamming things down too hard.

Tara shuffled into the main room she had dashed through in a daze after she and Ava’s first night together.

“I’m Imogen,” the woman said. She stuck her hand out, and Tara shook it delicately. The gentle action tilted Imogen’s smile into a slightly more carnivorous one. It gave Tara a tingle across her neck at how similar it was to Ava’s teeth-baring grin. She got the distinct feeling this woman had the same taste as her roommate: small and submissive women. “I want to say that Ava has told me so much about you,” she continued, “but she never tells me anything about the women she spends time with.”

Tara hadn’t a clue how to respond to that, so she simply mumbled, “O-oh, that’s oka-”

“Don’t worry, I’m off to work so I won’t be listening in. You gals have fun.”

She was gone with a wink and a wave, leaving Tara to stand in the living room seemingly unable to move an inch. She didn’t know if it was nerves or social awkwardness, but she simply could not bring herself to sit or relax in Ava’s space.

The woman she was there to see strode out of her bedroom with lazily swinging hips, scrubbing her hair with a small blue towel. She wore grey sweatpants and a white V-neck top and looked incredible. She halted and smiled when her eyes landed on Tara. Her smile sent a warmth to Tara’s cheeks; there was something so… primal and predatory about the way Ava grinned. It brought attention to her sharp little canines and dark eyes and left Tara open and vulnerable. Perhaps she liked that feeling… just a little…

Ava threw the towel into a plastic basket, leaving her shoulder-length hair still damp, and grabbed Tara by the sweater, leading her into the bedroom like a pet on a leash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Rebelrsr for beta-reading! <3


	5. Chapter 5

They had hooked up three times a week for the last five weeks. Every time was just as overwhelming, exhilarating and exhausting as the last. Tara always slept over, which Daisy had informed her was not normal for friends with benefits. She had decided it didn’t matter if it was normal as long as she and Ava seemed to be enjoying themselves. Plus, they were always at it for so long that not only was Tara completely wiped of all of her energy, but it was also dark and ominous outside. She would rather not walk home that late without her wits about her. And when Ava was done with her she had no wits of any kind left in her head. She could barely speak from fatigue. Once Ava had used every ounce of passion Tara had, what she became was a pile of floppy limbs, a pair of drooping eyes and a puff of sweaty hair.

Wednesday was dragging by as she repeatedly made pumpkin spice latte after pumpkin spice latte after pumpkin spice latte. Shawn did his best to keep her entertained, but she often found her mind wandering to Ava’s long limbs and her strong grip and dark eyes and the way she always let her teeth catch Tara’s skin when she kissed it and-oh! Another drink overfilled and splattered onto the floor, just missing her feet. It was the third mess she had made that day. She didn’t want to know the number she had tallied against her since she had met Ava. Shawn said nothing but gave her a raised eyebrow look that implied he knew far too much. She blushed, shrugged, and got to work on clean-up.

Her phone screen had a single message waiting for her once she eventually got on break.

_Ava: Free tomorrow?_

Tara responded straight away. Sadly, she was not free.

_Tara: Sorry, have plans tomorrow and all weekend. Next week?_

_Ava: You’re not free for a single night the rest of this week?_

Tara blinked a few times as she read the short message over a few times. Why did Ava seem annoyed? It was only sex, it could wait four days.

_Tara: No, I’m hanging out with my friends._

_Ava: I thought I was your friend._

Tara winced. Friends with benefits is a different kind of friend and in her mind it didn’t warrant the same kind of loyalty that she had to her normal friends.

_Tara: You are, and I’ve spent a lot of time with you for the last month. I have seen you more than any of my other friends. It’s just sex, it can wait._

She felt nervous tacking the last six words onto the end of her text but it felt necessary.

Ava didn’t respond.

It left her with an uneasy feeling for the rest of the day, and all through the dinner Daisy had arranged for their mutual friends. She still enjoyed their company, still chatted and cracked jokes, but she checked her phone far more often than usual. Her eyes itching to see that one name appear, just three letters was all she craved.

It did not go unnoticed by her eagle-eyed best friend and roommate.

When they slumped into their couch at the end of the night, Daisy’s green eyes were staring at her, waiting for an excuse.

Tara sighed, there was no point in keeping it bottled up.

“I sent a cranky text to Ava and she hasn’t responded all day.”

“Was the cranky text necessary?”

“I think so,” Tara mumbled.

She opened her phone and passed it to Daisy for her appraisal. Daisy scrolled quickly and cackled.

“Go Tara!”

Tara groaned, “Oh no, that’s not good.” The times Daisy usually felt it appropriate to cheer her on were when she was doing something dumb while drunk, it was not a sign of good fortune.

“I think you’re right,” Daisy advised, handing the phone back. “Don’t text her again, wait for her to come to you.”

Tara grumbled weakly but decided to follow her advice, at least for tonight.

Daisy jumped up and announced, “now, I’m cream-crackered. I shall see you in the morning, my dear.” She trotted away to her bedroom.

“Night,” Tara called after her before pulling herself up and slumping into her own room. She checked her phone at least five more times before closing her eyes in bed.

Nothing came through.

She dreamt of Ava for the second time that night. The realism had not dwindled. Every touch, every action, every orgasm felt completely and utterly real. The Ava of her dreams was rough with her, using her and pinning her to the bed forcefully. Tara wondered if her subconscious was trying to tell her something… that deep down she felt guilty for being sharp with Ava. Or that she had an odd undiscovered kink that her body wanted to explore…

When her alarm dragged her from the land of dreams, she peeled her eyes open groggily and glanced down at her body, expecting to find her fingers tucked into her underwear, proving she truly was a nymphomaniac. Instead, her hands were laying limp at her sides. No blankets covered any inch of her, all flung to the floor in the night. Her pyjamas were ruffled but still being worn by her. Light bruises curled around her wrists, thighs and waist.


	6. Chapter 6

When Daisy asked after the bruises on her wrists, Tara mumbled an excuse about falling over at work and made an attempt to cover up more for the next few days. If her best friend had seen the blotches pressed into her thighs and waist, it would have been far harder to explain away. Tara herself didn’t know for certain the cause of the marks. But she knew what they looked like: hand and finger prints.

Obviously, she was not deluded enough to believe the Ava of her dreams had caused her physical damage. Her top theory so far was that, in the throes of her semi-conscious fantasy she had taken her self-pleasure a step too far and groped her own flesh. Not that she had ever done anything like that before but it seemed Ava had ignited a heightened sexuality inside of her in the last few weeks, so maybe this was all part of her growth into becoming a self-molesting, pillow-humping, sleep-walking, sex-addict like a character out of an erotic comic. There was a fairly large hole in this explanation though: her hands were too small to match the size of those imprinted into her skin.

It was a reach to believe the hand prints matched Ava’s wide palms, but Tara found it hard to put the image from her mind as she watched the bruises fade over the course of the week. Ava did not contact her once for the entire duration. It took every little dribble of willpower and stubbornness within Tara not to go crawling back to her, to beg for forgiveness over text. This was a grown woman sulking, she did not have to stoop to such levels to appease her and pander to her. As much as she wanted to for the sake of her sex life.

Another week passed. She had yet to have another dream of Ava but that didn’t stop her firm body and deliciously dark eyes from wandering through Tara’s mind while awake. She had finally broken down and confessed to Shawn that Ava was avoiding and ignoring her on day ten, and he was irritatingly pleased by this. It was a complete one-eighty from how he should have reacted. He had set her up with this friend and now his friend was being rude and childish! He should be ashamed at her behaviour!

“I don’t mean to seem insensitive but I have a theory about why she’s acting like this and I just really hope I’m right.”

“I don’t suppose you feel like sharing your stupid theory?” Tara huffed childishly.

“Of course, my darling Tara.”

Tara waved her hand to encourage him, curious now.

“You remember me telling you that Ava doesn’t tend to go back to the same woman twice?”

“I vaguely remember an ice-cream analogy.”

“Exactly. So, she has been tied to the same woman for almost two months.”

“You think she got bored of me and has found someone else?” Tara asked, trying to keep her voice from diminishing into a pathetic whisper. Friends with benefits, that’s all they were.

Shawn flicked her forehead gently with a kind smile. “No, I think she’s realising she’s getting attached and trying to back up so that she can cool off a little.” He sounded genuine but Tara wasn’t convinced. This wasn’t how normal people acted when they liked someone.

“I think you are vastly overestimating how much affection she has for me.”

“I think you’re vastly underestimating how cute you are.”

“We’ll see,” Tara sighed, partly wishing she had never raised the topic. She flung a tea towel over her shoulder and headed to the back to check stock.

Shawn called after her, “it’s not just you she’s been acting differently with, you know. Me and Imogen have been bearing the brunt of her bad attitude the last two weeks in person!”

“I’m sure you’ll survive,” Tara snapped. She didn’t mean to be cranky and rude, but she was tired of being left in the dark. It wasn’t Shawn’s fault his friend was treating her like this, but she did secretly wish he would do something, say something to her, anything.

~

A few nights later, as Tara lounged across her sofa with Daisy beside her, wine in their hands, a text flickered onto her phone screen. She glanced over, her eyes moving slowly in her tipsy state.

Ava’s name sat there, awaiting her.

Tara sat up with a jerk and snatched her phone from the coffee table, her wine glass in her other hand. Daisy leant in behind her to read the message over her shoulder.

_Ava: Would I get priority over your other friends if we were dating?_

Shock paralysed her for a few moments, rendering her unable to type back a response. Was Ava… jealous?

Daisy voiced the same thought loudly into Tara’s ear.

_Tara: My girlfriends get equal priority to my friends._

“Ooh, good answer!” Daisy praised before taking another sip of her wine.

_Ava: So I could get half your time?_

_Tara: If we were dating._

“Say ‘But we’re not.’ as well!” Daisy suggested excitedly. Tara sent it.

_Ava: And if I were to ask you out?_

Daisy reached her hand out, fingers wiggling, to ask for the phone. Tara knew it was probably a bad idea, but she was a little tipsy too and what was the worst Daisy could send?

_Tara: I would ask why you left me on read for two weeks._

_Tara: I would ask who you’d been seeing the last two weeks._

_Tara: I would ask if you only wanted to date me for sex._

_Ava: Daisy, give Tara back her phone._

Both women leapt a foot in the air in surprise, Tara spilling a few drops of wine onto the sofa.

“How did she know?!” Daisy stage whispered with wild eyes.

Tara shrugged but took the phone back.

_Tara: She’s right, though._

_Ava: I stayed away for 2 weeks because I don’t normally let feelings get involved with my relationships, it’s usually all sex. I didn’t like that I was starting to develop feelings for you. I haven’t been seeing anyone and I don’t want to date you for sex. I don’t need a girlfriend to have sex._

_Tara: What feelings do you have for me?_

Tara felt her face flush hotly as she pressed ‘send’ and Daisy giggled into her glass.

_Ava: I find you very cute, funny, interesting. The more time I spent with you, the more I wanted. It felt like that should be a warning sign for me to stop, so I did. But then I found it even harder to stay away. I still don’t know if this is the best idea for you, I don’t think I would make a very good partner. But I have found myself completely addicted and it seems it’s making me irrational._

_Tara: You’re not selling yourself very well here._

_Ava: Half of me is still trying to push you away._

_Tara: Tell that half of you to pipe down._

_Ava: Is it normal for alcohol to make you fiesty?_

_Tara: Are you spying on me?_

_Ava: Woman’s intuition._

_Tara: Are you going to ask me out or what?_

Her phone began to ring, jumping in her palms and shocking her still for a moment. It was Ava.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Daisy offered with a wink before draining her glass and sauntering off to her room.

Tara pressed the green symbol and put the phone to her ear with shaking fingers and a racing heart.


	7. Chapter 7

Dating Ava was a wholly different experience than any of Tara’s previous relationships. Ava had unlimited energy, unlimited curiosity and, apparently, zero understanding of what was appropriate for a serious, grown-up relationship. A month had passed since she had asked Tara to be her girlfriend officially and she had grasped some concepts well, such as spending considerable amounts of time together, having a lot of sex, going on dates after work and even giving Tara the pet name of ‘Tiara’. However, Tara found herself having to explain on multiple occasions that Ava could not have every single moment of her free time, that it was normal for Tara to be unable to respond to or pick up her phone for a few hours and that “I have work in the morning” does really mean ‘no sex’.

All in all though, they were making progress. As a first-timer, Ava was learning her way around real relationships slowly but surely and Tara was happy with how she was being treated and… handled. She could not complain about her sexual needs being met, she had actually upped her calorie intake to meet the stamina requirements she found she was needing to keep up. Ava had no such problem, she always had the strength to keep going.

She also excelled in every activity she attempted on their dates, despite always claiming it was her first time. It made Tara wonder what kind of upbringing this woman had had if she’d truthfully never gone bowling, ice-skating, roller-blading, played pool, or spent the afternoon on any kind of activity course where you climbed trees with wires clipped to you and walked over suspended bridges (Tara had been particularly crap at that but at least she had an excuse to cling to Ava the entire time like a bush baby). It seemed like an odd thing to lie about so Tara decided Ava must simply be one of those super outdoorsy-types that can excel in anything physical or taxing. Tara was more the cosy-type that excels at sitting still for long periods of time while knitting or reading.

It was her turn to plan their next date (they usually did one meal out in the week and then an activity at the weekend, plus nights in at Ava’s flat when Imogen was working all night) and she was hoping to combine their abilities into one fun-filled day. She had read about a hiking trail that led through beautiful woodlands and up a tall grass-covered hill with a picnic area at the crown. They could relax on a huge blanket with books and pillows and curl up together when it got chilly (which was most of the time these days but if they started early she hoped they would get a few hours of warmth). They could eat chunky sandwiches and fruit cut into pretty shapes-

“Turn around slowly and open the till,” a harsh voice barked behind her, knocking her daydreams out of her open mouth. Tara turned slowly on the spot, mouth still agape and cleaning rag in her hand from where she had been wiping down the counter that they kept the blenders on. A man with a patchy beard, a black wool beanie, and teeth that couldn’t seem to sit together naturally was stood on the opposite side of the checkout counter, a snarl pulling at his ragged features. A knife longer than Tara’s hand was pointed at her, hovering over the till.

“I- um-”

“You speak English?”

Tara managed to gasp out, “yes.”

“Then open the fucking till.”

“I-I’m doing it now,” she squeaked and punched the ‘change’ button to open the cash drawer. Nothing happened. She jabbed it again, harder, fear bubbling up her throat as she realised it had jammed up again. When the till got jammed she usually had to wait for Shawn to arrive for his shift in order to pry it open. She would be alone in the cafe until two, and it was eleven.

The scruffy man backed away, knife still raised, until he reached the front door. He kept his eyes on her as she kept pressing buttons frantically and slid the bolt across at the very top of the door, locking it from the inside.

“The till is jammed, I’m going to try the other one,” Tara called to him as calmly as she could and sidestepped to their other till with her palms raised, showing no deception. In all of their robbery training they were always advised to just hand over the cash, and given they were a small business in a quiet area, that wasn’t much anyway.

He gave a half-nod and growled, “hurry up.”

As Tara lowered her hands to the buttons, he began moving back towards her with knife raised to chest-level. Her eyes flickered anxiously up and down between her fingers clumsily bumping buttons and his jerky steps in her direction. On the third glance, her eyes snapped to a figure approaching the front door. She returned her focus to the till again, feeling grateful that the door was locked and an unsuspecting customer wouldn’t accidentally stumble into this mess. She just hoped they would give up after finding the door locked.

With a particularly firm jab of her finger, she finally heard the satisfying tinkle of the cash drawer opening and stepped back to allow it to open. The man had become restless, shifting from foot to foot in front of her, knife bouncing in his hand. She began to pull the notes out first, placing them onto the counter in piles of their denominations. The ring of the bell signalling the front door opening froze her hands and drew her eyes back up to look past the man’s shoulder. It had to be the breeze of the AC, it wasn’t possible to open a door that had been deadbolted from the inside without busting it down, but Tara’s surprise forced her to look regardless.

Ava stepped into Jessi’s Java and pushed the door closed behind her, pulling across the deadbolt to lock it just as the man had done previously. Just the way it had been locked when she entered. As Tara struggled to process the impossible action she had just witnessed, hands still clutching bunches of five-pound notes, Ava’s eyes snatched hers. No matter how hard Tara tried, she could not break her gaze away, forced to watch her girlfriend stalk towards her and the now very agitated man. But she could no longer hear his snarling voice. She could no longer move her body. Black eyes held Tara in place until her own vision began to darken at the edges, until all she could see was black. Ava’s sharp eyes consuming her.

A gentle shake pulled Tara from the black fog she had been enveloped in, from a sleep she had not realised she had been held by. The ceiling of Jessi’s Java swirled into slow focus in front of her eyes, the cold tiles pressing into her lower back while her top half was laid across a warm lap. Ava leant over her, brushing her forehead with two fingers tenderly.

“Wh-what happened?” Tara gasped as her entire body broke out in a cold sweat, as though a sudden wash of fear was hitting her at a delay.

“You fainted,” Ava said simply and pulled Tara up a little by her armpits so that she was sitting up in her lap instead of laying messily. Tara twisted at the waist to peer up at her girlfriend’s face and curled her hands into her shirt. She couldn’t translate the expression on Ava’s face. “Don’t worry, there were no customers around and I put the ‘closed’ sign on the door,” Ava reassured her quietly.

“I… I’ve never fainted before.”

“It can happen to anyone.”

Something about the dismissive way in which Ava responded irked Tara, it didn’t sit right with her.

“But…we… we were getting robbed,” she recounted slowly, her memories clarifying themselves in her mind at a delayed pace.

“Robbed?” Ava’s voice was too high.

“There was a man. He had a knife. The till got… jammed.” As Tara said the word ‘jammed’ she slowly dragged her eyes to the till in question. It was closed, the screen reading ‘Welcome to Jessi’s Java! What can we get ya?’ in a scrolling text from left to right.

“I think you had a strange dream while you were unconscious.”

“It felt real,” Tara mumbled.

Ava shrugged with a sad smile. “I wish I could help you there, Tiara, but I just came in to get a coffee and you dropped like a sack of potatoes right in front of me.” She pulled Tara more tightly into her arms, a squeezing cuddle in her lap that would have embarrassed her if they weren’t hidden from street view behind the till counter. She felt like a child being comforted, being advised through affection to quiet down and forget it., not to make a fuss.

“You _were_ there,” Tara whispered as more of the moments before she blacked out came back. “You appeared so fast… and walked right in even though the door was locked.”

“Why would the door have been locked?”

“The man locked it.”

Ava said firmly, “but there wasn’t a man.”

They stared each other down for a few moments. Tara wanted desperately to let it drop, to just agree with Ava and move on. But her gut was twisting and she knew, innately, that something was wrong.

Tara kept her voice as low and controlled as she could manage with her nerves as frayed as they were. “You’re lying to me,” she said.

“Why would I lie to you?”

“Because weird stuff always happens when you’re near. You’re trying to cover up my eyes so I don’t work out what’s going on.”

“What _is_ going on?” Ava sounded genuinely curious in her question. Her body language seemed to Tara to be conveying a slight nervousness but with a desire to hear and engage with her, holding her gently and looking her in the eyes, massaging her clothed skin in circular motions with her thumbs and breathing evenly despite an anxious tint to her eyes. It was as though… Ava wanted Tara to connect the dots but couldn’t give her the pen to do so.

“I… I’m not sure.”

As Tara had expected, this invoked a disappointed dip of Ava’s lips, confirming her instinct that Ava was hoping for her to guess correctly. A secret she wanted Tara to know but couldn’t tell. “Well, until you have a theory for me to disprove, we should probably focus on getting you checked by a doctor.” As she spoke to she attempted to pull back and stand, lifting Tara with her.

Tara’s hand shot out and grabbed Ava’s arm, her skin was hot. “Wait, why can’t you just tell me?” she pleaded desperately. It wasn’t fair, she wanted to know the truth.

Ava’s obsidian eyes cycled through dismissal, curiosity and pain before she found her response. “Because… it would only put you in danger.” She lowered them back to the ground and Tara felt an ounce of success, she was getting somewhere. She wasn’t sure where, but it was progress.

“Are you in a gang?” Tara whispered, voicing the first theory that popped into her frazzled mind.

Ava laughed loudly. “No, I’m not in a gang - do I look like a thug to you?”

“No, but you do look scary sometimes,” Tara admitted.

“Good, that’s the goal.”

“Who are you trying to scare?”

“Anyone who gets too close.”

“Am I getting too close?”

“Yes.” She sighed tiredly. It wasn’t what Tara had wanted to hear. “But, I can’t find it in me to… push you away. Not with any real effort anyway. I’m a horrible, selfish creature and I’m letting that put you in harm’s way.”

“I don’t think you’re horrible or selfish,” Tara mumbled weakly.

“You don’t know what I’m inadvertently getting you involved in.” Ava’s voice was the softest Tara had ever heard it, tinged with pain.

“The more I know, the more wary I’ll be,” Tara insisted, turning her body the final forty-five degrees in her seated position to look up into Ava’s face fully. She needed her girlfriend to take her seriously. “You can’t protect me by keeping me in the dark.”

A long, thick and stomach-twisting pause held them in its clutches, both women analysing the other’s face intensely. Tara’s resolve swung back and forth, part of her screaming to break the silence, to give Ava an out. But would she have another chance like this? To demand the truth and possibly even get it?

“Tara, I’m a demon.”

Frustration simmered under Tara’s skin and she huffed, “Ava, I already said I don’t think badly of y-”

“No, Tara, I mean biologically.”


	8. Chapter 8

Shawn approached Tara with slow, cautious steps, pretending to wipe down the counter with a dry rag. He was not a great actor. Once he was just a foot away, he finally spoke. “Ava mentioned that she… told you.”

“Mmhmm,” Tara responded. It was the first sound she had made vocally in almost twenty-four hours.

He took it as a confirmation to continue. “She said you seemed to go into shock and… stopped talking.”

It was true. After her girlfriend of a single month, whom she had only known for around nine weeks, announced she was a mythical being, Tara had found herself struggling to digest the announcement and comment on it. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. But Ava was not the type to make silly or childish jokes. And the way she said the word ‘demon’, it was paralysing. In fact, she had felt paralysed inside of her own mind since she found out. Her girlfriend is a demon. A biblical creature. A monstrous entity from another realm.

Again, Tara could only hum in answer. “Mmm.”

“She said she carried you home, dropped you off, and you went inside without saying goodbye.”

Also true. Having attempted a few times to encourage Tara to speak or stand on her trembling legs, Ava had admitted defeat, gathered the smaller woman in her arms carefully and held her against her firm chest. She had then carried her out, locking the door to Jessi’s Java behind her, and walked steadily to Tara’s apartment building. Every movement felt slow and calculated, it gave Tara the suspicion that Ava was deliberately doing her best not to spook her further. With a quiet tone she advised that she would let Shawn know he needed to start his shift early, then placed Tara on her feet at the building’s front door. Tara nodded gratefully, although did not turn her head to look Ava in the face, and let herself in with fumbling fingers.

“Mmhmm.”

“And that you didn’t respond to any of her messages all night.”

“Mmm.”

“And I can’t help but notice you haven’t said a word all morning.”

“Mmhmm.”

Silence filled the empty cafe for a few minutes. Neither of them moved. They must have looked like a pair of mannequins, stood immaculately still at the counter and facing the front door.

“And… you’re scaring me a little,” Shawn said with an awkward humour layered over his words. Something about them flicked a switch in Tara’s mind, it triggered a spark of frustration and annoyance within her.

“What do you have to be scared of?” she said far too sharply. “You’re one too, right?”

He considered his answer momentarily, his mouth twisted with indecision, before replying with his own question. “Did she tell you that?”

Tara murmured, “no.” She had been hoping he would deny it.

“Well, even demons feel fear, Tara.”

Hearing the word spoken so casually was still grating to her ears, she wasn’t adjusted to this reality yet. This foreign world in which she was dating… a demon. Tara was still debating whether or not she could simply pretend she had never heard what Ava said the previous day, play dumb for the duration of their relationship. But how long would that be?

“How much longer will the silent treatment be going on for? I may have to turn the radio up.”

Tara let out a sigh that was bordering on a groan before grumbling, “it’s not the silent treatment, I’m thinking.”

“In that case, do you want to ask anything? You probably have lots you want to know.”

“I’m still processing the word ‘demon,” Tara admitted, unable to look at him when she said the word that now felt like an expletive. “I haven’t really progressed beyond that.”

“Understandable.”

A few more minutes of silence passed. Shawn managed to busy himself with their cutlery divider, rearranging delicate teaspoons meticulously. Tara did not move.

“Off the top of my head, though…” she said tentatively, unsure of whether she wanted to finish her own sentence. If she began asking questions or searching for clarification, then she would have to admit to knowing what she was still trying to pretend she didn’t know. Perhaps it was already too late, though. “Ava mentioned me being in danger by association because of… what she is - how does that work?”

“Well, we don’t exactly… belong here.”

“Here being?”

“This layer of life-forms. What humans can perceive is a mid-level layer of the worlds that exist. Anything that a human can see with their naked eye we class as ‘Earth’ even though it’s all layers of the same cake, if you get my meaning.”

“It’s always food analogies with you,” she huffed with a restrained smile. She was glad for it, though. He seemed more and more to be the same Shawn she had known, even if now she knew so much more than she had ever expected to.

“Anyway, so humans are native to this layer and demons are native to a layer that is a couple of levels below, a fun little place called ‘Hell’. Angels are native to the upper levels, of which there are a lot more. The problem is, Hell is small and cramped and designed to be generally unpleasant in order to ward off badly-behaved angels and humans. However, the more fallen angels and human souls that end up there, the worse it gets. We don’t have the luxury of space that Heaven does in that they have far more layers to occupy, and demons don’t tend to get promoted up to their land. Ever. Once you fall, there’s no getting back up. So, a lot of us sneak our way into Earth, the middle ground.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“Angels are the problem. They created this structure in order to uphold their beliefs and laws. Contrary to what many realise, angels have an enormous hand in the politics of Hell because it is essentially their prison to punish their people for crimes they dictate. They effectively own the place but have demons as the face of the operation. So, when demons escape into Earth for a laid-back life and some breathing room, they not only send demon enforcers to drag you back and restore order on their side but Heaven also sends angel enforcers who are ‘protecting Earth’ by throwing you back into the sweaty armpit that is Hell.”

“If they’re so determined to maintain order, how did you and Ava escape?”

“There are a couple of underground organisations that aid demons that want out. Ava and I came through the same one but at different times so I can’t speak for her entire ordeal but mine was rough and I would assume hers was too. We were put in contact by the organisation as part of a buddy-system they use to ensure we have support in the human world. Imogen was part of her group and they stuck together after arrival. I think they lost a lot of people along the way so it made sense for them to continue as a pair.”

“Lost?”

“When you get caught by an enforcer… it’s not pretty. You’ve already been looking a little pale all morning so I don’t think it would be healthy for me to get too far into the specifics.”

It was a tad too late as Tara was already feeling queasy making her own assumptions about what happened if you were caught by an enforcer, but she still said, “I appreciate that.”

Shawn quickly changed the subject to their shift rota and a new weekend worker that would be starting soon, much to Tara’s relief. She needed time to breakdown what she had learned so far before she asked any more.

Ava was waiting for her at the end of her shift. Hovering outside the back door in the alleyway that leads onto the main road. Tara froze momentarily in the doorway when she saw her. As she stepped out into the crisp evening air, she tugged the sleeves of her chunky-knit pastel yellow jumper over her hands awkwardly. Although it wasn’t that cold, goosebumps rose on the stripe of bare thigh that peeked out between her blue denim pinafore dress and white thigh high socks.

“Hey,” Ava said softly.

Tara watched her for a moment, her brain still slowly morphing the Ava that she knew into this new Ava. This forbidden creature who was showing an interest in her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, just as softly as her greeting.

“I will be.”

“Shawn said-”

“I would really appreciate it if the pair of you could stop the running commentary of the conversations you have together. I already had Shawn relaying everything you had said about my reaction today.” Tara was all too aware that she was letting her anxiety and shock at the situation escape her in the form of irritation and barbed words. She was not angry at either of them, she knew that, she simply felt flustered and unsure of how she was supposed to react.

“I’m sorry, I told him out of concern for you. I wanted him to check in, make you sure were-”

“I’m fine,” Tara said firmly. She didn’t want to talk about herself or try to come up with a way to describe how she felt because in all honesty, she did not know yet.

“Understood.”

Tara pushed the back door to Jessi’s Java closed behind her and stood directly under Ava’s nose. “Let’s go back to yours, I’m ready to talk.”

A visible glaze of relief slid over Ava’s face and she even smiled, albeit slightly tensely.

“Can I carry you again?”

Tara stared into the black eyes that had entrapped her in this insane situation, they were alight with a mischievous excitement.“Sure,” she agreed. She could do with a bit of physical affection after a night of no sleep and a day of jumbled thoughts.

Ava swooped her up by the shoulders and the crook of her knees in a movement so fast it shook Tara’s brain inside of her skull. That was not how she had cradled her in her arms the previous day. She suddenly had a maniacal grin spread across her face that unsettled Tara.

“You are far too excited,” Tara scolded her with a weak smile. “It’s making me nervous.”

“You should be, Tiara.”

Tara’s eyes blurred. The street lights turned to horizontal white stripes and her stomach shot into her throat. She had been on rollercoasters with less g-force than she was experiencing tucked against Ava’s chest. Before she could recalibrate her equilibrium, her feet were being lowered tentatively to the pavement outside of Ava’s front door.

Tara’s knees buckled at the minute impact of her shoes brushing the ground, refusing to hold her up in their shock of her relocation at what had to have been more than eighty miles per hour. She hung limply from Ava’s arms, her thoughts playing catch-up.

“You’re gonna tear my shirt,” was all Ava offered in compensation for the whirlwind Tara had just experienced. She was clearly enjoying Tara’s reaction. Tara glanced up at her hands, curled into claws in the soft material of Ava’s white tee. Her nails were not long enough to tear anything but she loosened her grip just a little.

“That was… intense,” she breathed shakily.

“I can’t wait to show you the full strength of my powers,” Ava growled into her ear. There was a playful but threatening edge to her words and Tara’s thighs clamped together instinctively. She had been struggling to keep up with Ava in her ‘human-mode’, demon Ava may just obliterate her. It took her a little longer to ease herself back onto her own feet and hold her own weight again. Once, she could put one foot in front of the other without stumbling, Ava let them in.

Once inside Ava’s apartment, they tumbled onto the sofa entangled together, kissing and laughing. The noise roused Imogen from her room. She opened her bedroom door and leant against the frame with her hip jutted out.

She said, “I didn’t realise Tara was staying tonight.”

Tara instantly righted herself on the sofa, embarrassed at having been caught splayed out. She stammered, “Sorry, Imogen, I-”

“It’s not a problem,” Imogen assured her with a lazy wave of her hand. “Just give me five minutes and I can be out for the night.”

Before she could turn back into her room, Ava declared, “Tara knows.”

Imogen stood up straight but kept her hand on the door frame. They shared a look of raised brows and tense mouths. Tara got the distinct sensation that they were sharing a full silent conversation. Was that another special demon ability? Imogen nodded to Ava, breaking off their telepathic talk, and entered the living room slowly. She approached the sofa and perched on the arm beside Tara with crossed legs. Tara watched her nervously, she couldn’t tell how Imogen was taking the revelation that she had found out what she is.

Imogen immediately asked the question that Tara was already tired of hearing. “How do you feel about all this?”

“I think I can honestly say I was quite shocked,” she answered with as much energy as she could muster.

“Understandable.”

“How do _you_ feel about me knowing? From the little I know so far, I’ve gathered it’s just as dangerous for you two as it is for me that this has been… revealed.”

“I don’t mind. Ava cares more for you than I’ve seen her care for anyone. Anyway, we are always at risk, there are agents everywhere and we will never truly be safe.”

“I care for you too,” Ava reminded her stiffly. Her awkwardness clearly amused Imogen, who smiled with a teasing twinkle in her eyes.

“Not in the same way, Ava,” Imogen advised gently. Surprisingly, Ava appeared embarrassed for a moment before schooling her face.

Tara turned back to Imogen to say, “that sounds very stressful, how do you ever relax?”

“Personally, I have been caught once before, and I have met a fair few others who have too. I find that there are two kinds of people in this situation: those that become stronger and less fearful after experiencing the horror of capture and subsequent torture and release back into Hell, and those that fall apart.” Her frank words and unemotional tone did not buffer the sickly feeling that crept over Tara’s skin as she listened. “The way that I have to come to see it, I would do anything not to experience that again, but I also know I can survive it and remain sane.”

“Have you ever been caught?” Tara asked Ava quietly.

Ava shook her head. “No, I’m a first-timer in the human realm.”

“Is it what you expected?”

“I… didn’t have any concrete expectations in my mind before I got here. I just knew it had to be better than where I came from.”

“And is it?”

Both women laughed at the question.

“It is paradise, my precious Tiara.”

Imogen made herself scarce after a brief phone call, picking up a last minute shift at the bar, and left the pair alone for the night. Ava offered to make dinner and Tara offered to watch her make dinner while making silly comments. She balanced on one of the two stools that bookended the kitchen counter and observed Ava blur about the small kitchen, pulling out ingredients and chopping vegetables at break-neck speed.

After a while, Tara’s eyes began to ache from trying to keep up with the hundred-mile-per-hour movements and she decided to move her focus to her phone screen for a quick break. She pulled it from her back pocket and leant her elbows on the counter to scroll. The small device was plucked from her hand almost immediately after she unlocked it and held over her head by Ava.

“Hey!” Tara laughed. “Give it back!”

She reached up but Ava lifted her phone higher with a teasing grin, she stretched her spine as far as she could but still could not reach, finally she pulled herself up onto her knees on the flat top of the stool, convinced she would now be victorious.

Before she could touch the screen, Ava grabbed the stool with her other hand and tilted it backwards.

“Stop! I’ll fall!” Tara yelped, scrabbling to find something to cling to.

Ava lifted it back another degree. “Make me,” she said with the same expression she wore in bed right before sending Tara over the sexual edge. Now she was about to be sent tipping over the wooden edge of the stool.

“How?” Tara squeaked.

Ava scrunched her brows together with a low laugh. “What?”

“How do I make you let go of the stool… and give me back my phone?”

“You should try bargaining.” Ava leant her head forward, put her lips to Tara’s ear and growled, “offer me something.”

Tara whispered, “what do you want?” with fingers curled around the edge of seat, white-knuckled.

Ava’s grin managed to widen even further, pointed canines bared. “That’s not how you bargain, my little Tiara,” she scolded teasingly. “You don’t ask me what I want, that opens up the opportunity for me to request anything. Make me an offer.”

“But… I don’t know what to offer.” Tara mumbled helplessly.

“Fine, I’ll start with my demands and you negotiate me down.”

Tara nodded, concentration pinching her mouth and round cheeks. What was the worst that she could want?

“I want you to stay at mine for a full week, I want you to wear nothing but lingerie when inside my apartment during that time - provided by me, and I want to watch you play with yourself in the shower.”

Tara’s entire body burned with a cocktail of mortification and lust. “W-well, I am willing to offer you a one-night sleepover at yours, in regular PJs, and a shared shower where we… do stuff to each other.”

“Not good enough,” Ava chuckled. “You already stay over for one night at a time.”

“Maybe I could wear sexy pajamas… but they would be ones that I pick out!”

“If I don’t get what I want I’m tipping you off this stool.”

“But then, how do I negotiate against that? I don’t want to fall!”

“I guess you have no choice but to surrender to my demands then.”

Tara considered her non-existent options for half a moment before nodding with a pout. She found the courage to unfurl her fingers from the stool and lift them up like a toddler looking to be carried. Ava laughed and swooped her up against her with a tight cuddle and peppered kisses along the side of her face.

“Stop teasing me and start dishing up dinner!” Tara huffed with a laugh.

Ava pressed one last firm kiss to her forehead before dropping her back on the seat and returned to the pots and pans.

When their stomachs were full and they were curled up back on the sofa, Ava announced, “You know, you could have very easily won that negotiation over the stool.”

“How?” Tara mumbled into her girlfriend’s top.

“By being aware of the value that you hold. All of my demands were directed at you personally, that should have been a hint that if you were to threaten me back, I would have bowed to the pressure.”

“So, if I had threatened to take away date night, or not let you touch me, you would have given in?”

“Maybe. You have to listen to your opponent’s demands, it tells you what they care about.”

Tara couldn’t keep her smile from pulling almost painfully at her cheeks. “You care about me?” she checked with a high-pitched squeaky voice.

Ava gave a short laugh before answering, “maybe.”

“If you don’t care about me, I guess you also don’t care whether I stay or leave then,” Tara said with mock sadness, slowly pulling away from Ava’s embrace and rising from the sofa.

“You’re a fast learner,” Ava said appreciatively and yanked Tara back into her lap by the loose material of her sweater.

“Is that the best compliment you have for me?”

“You’re also beautiful, precious, and adorable, and everything you say has me fighting not to laugh at you.”

“You almost had my knickers off there.”

Apparently Ava could not fight off her amusement this time as she almost sent herself into hysterics laughing at her. Tara let herself giggle too, enjoying her girlfriend’s laugh more than the dumb comment. As soon as Ava had calmed herself, though, her hand was crawling under Tara’s denim pinafore to pull off the aforementioned underwear.


	9. Chapter 9

“What’re you staring at?” Shawn chuckled from his place at the counter, refilling the napkin dispensers.

  


Tara and Ava were sharing a two-seater table with half-drunk cappuccinos, extending Tara’s break indefinitely… or at least until a customer decided to enter Jessi’s Java. Given it was the middle of a Monday, they weren’t exactly expecting a landslide of patrons.

  


Tara was guilty of the staring for which she was being accused, her eyes flitting between the two demons over and over, unable to settle. “I just… I was only wondering… what do you guys really look like?”

  


Ava blinked, an amused smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

  


“What do you mean?” Shawn asked slowly.

  


“You don’t… I mean, I’m assuming that demons don’t look like humans. This is a disguise… right?” Her voice had disintegrated as she spoke, until the last word barely got past her lips. She would not be admitting the scaly apparitions she had imagined, but as usual Ava had that look on her face as though she could read her thoughts anyway. Maybe Tara shouldn’t have stayed up all night watching conspiracy theory videos on Saturday… those lizard people had stuck with her.

  


Shawn grinned. “Well, I doubt we look as different as you think we do,” he answered cryptically.

  


“Can I see?”

  


Ava laughed obnoxiously. “Absolutely not.”

  


Excitement and frustration swirled through Tara.“Please!” she gasped desperately but Ava was not to be swayed. She shook her smirk-filled face, showing her enjoyment at Tara’s pleading far too clearly. Tara frowned and switched her tactic. “Shawn, you’ll show me, right?”

  


“I…” He paused to look between them, and Tara wondered if he was weighing up his odds against Ava. “Not out here, but-”

  


Ava snapped, “Azazel,” with the firm tone of warning.

  


“Hey!” Shawn yelled, a laugh barely stifled beneath his shock. “There’s no need to bring my birth name into this!”

  


Tara’s ears perked up, prickling a little at the tips. She hadn’t even considered the concept of fake names when she had been daydreaming about their true forms. “What’s Ava’s real name?” she asked, her words spilling out of her mouth all in one garbled noise.

  


Shawn looked to Ava for approval. Ava gave a shrug of disinterest.

  


“Zibiah,” he said.

  


“Zibiah.” Tara tested the name on her tongue.

  


“It translates to gazelle in English,” Shawn added.

  


Tara couldn’t hold back a surprised giggle. When both demons stared at her curiously, she explained. “Ava seems more the predator than the prey. If she’s a gazelle, I can’t imagine what kind of person has the name ‘cheetah’!”

  


Shawn chuckled, leant forward, and mumbled something to Ava.

  


Ava rolled her eyes and said, “No, that means to be dishonest.”

  


“Oh, English is confusing.”

  


“You’ve been here longer than me!” she reminded him with another laugh.

  


“When I first escaped into this realm it was in a completely different country! English is my second human language, might I remind you!”

  


“What is your first?” Tara asked.

  


“Italiano.”

  


“Why move to England?”

  


His eyes twinkled as he asked, “Have you ever visited Italy?”

  


“Only once, on a family holiday to Rome.”

  


“Notice anything in particular?”

  


“That everyone drives like they have nothing to live for?”

  


“That there are an awful lot of holy sites, artefacts and relics. Rome, in particular, is favoured by angel enforcers. I love the country, but all the major cities were always crawling with undercover angels. It’s very hard to live in the countryside without documentation, connections, etc. Big cities offer better chances of anonymity and work without prying questions.”

  


“Well, I’m glad you made your way here.”

  


Shawn laid his hands on their little table and grinned salaciously.“You’re too cute, Tara. I might just have to make a move on you myself.”

  


An uncomfortable flush swept over Tara’s body. Even knowing he was joking, the attention made her feel self-conscious.

  


Ava growled, “Back off goat-boy.”

  


“So, how do you tell an angel from a demon?” Tara squeaked, eager to change the subject back to them. “And do fallen angels look like demons? Or are all demons just fallen angels?”

  


The pair were laughing before she had finished her stream of questions, sporting matching expressions of baffled amusement. They looked at each other and Shawn shrugged, apparently giving Ava right of way in the conversation.

  


“Fallen angels are still angels - you can’t become a demon. Shawn, Imogen and I were all born demons. We are our own species but very similar to angels - I suppose like humans and apes?”

  


It was Tara’s turn to laugh. “I had wondered why Shawn behaved like a monkey.”

  


“Hey!” Shawn yelped with faux offence. “We are the superior beings! We have free will.”

  


“Yes, we are free to do just about anything except leave the awful realm we were born in,” Ava added.

  


“So, angels get the cushy living space but all the rules?” Tara summarised.

  


Ava took a sip from her mug, nodded, and said, “Exactly.”

  


“That doesn’t mean the ones that live up there actually follow the rules though,” said Shawn. “It just means they haven’t been caught yet.”

  


“Yeah, the stream of fallen angels entering Hell has been pretty consistent since the beginning of time. It doesn’t matter how the laws or the punishments change, they continue to do as they please until they get noticed.”

  


“That makes the rules seem kinda pointless,” Tara mused aloud.

  


“Careful, that’s a law broken right there!” Shawn warned her with a grin and wink.

  


“No questioning the law,” Ava explained with a long wagging finger. “Who knew my precious Tiara was such a rebel?”

  


Tara blushed and buried her face in her own oversized mug.

  


“But you said the laws and punishments change. How would they change if no one questions them?”

  


“They change as the angels at the top of the command chain change their stance on what is morally acceptable.”

  


“What that really means is: if an archangel decides they want to do something that would break a law, they will petition and debate as to how it is no longer the banishment-worthy offence it once was. Once they have convinced the other archangels, it is taken to a vote and removed as a law.”

  


Tara considered this for a few moments before asking, “And then would the previous angels convicted of breaking that law be pardoned?”

  


Both demons exploded into raucous laughter.

  


“Maybe I should apply for roles as a stand-up comedian in Hell,” Tara grumbled sulkily. Would there ever be a day when these two didn’t find every naive thing she said hilarious?

  


“Sorry, Tara. It just doesn’t work like that.”

  


“The archangels would never allow a fallen angel back into Heaven. Once they’ve been touched by the lower realms, they are tainted.” The way Ava said tainted was like that of a narrator of a spooky kids’ TV show. Or how Tara’s uncle would say ‘boogie monster’.

  


“And that rule applies to all species - including humans,” Shawn continued.” So even if you make it to Heaven after a long life of acting saintly, you can still fuck up when you get there and get sent tumbling down, never to return.”

  


Tara clapped her hands together and stood. “Well, that’s just about enough to send me into an existential crisis, so I think I’ll start on our Christmas specials signs for the window.” She shimmied out from the table, pushing the chair in after her. “I need something to concentrate on that isn’t my impending doom.”

  


“Our Autumn specials have only been up for six weeks!” Shawn protested with a pout.

  


It was her turn to school the demons. “Yes, but we have now entered November, and to humans that means the countdown to the fat man has begun.”

  


“We’re… two days in…” Ava mumbled, seemingly lost.

  


“Which means we are two days late. As soon as Halloween is over, Christmas begins,” Tara explained as she collected up the plastic re-usable signs and colourful markers from the storage cupboard near the bathroom.

  


“Do humans ever take a break from finding excuses to drink sugary drinks and eat mountains of food?” Ava wondered aloud.

  


“Between New Year’s Day and Pancake Day many humans try to go the gym, but not a lot succeed from what I have heard,” said Shawn.

  


Tara spread her arts and crafts materials across the largest table in the cafe. “Ava, you’ve lived on Earth for a few years and you work with humans. Do they not talk about these things?” she asked distractedly as she began sketching out a gingerbread man.

  


“The guys at the garage all keep to themselves and so do I. It’s not safe for demons to mix too much with humans and get involved in their personal lives.”

  


“Weird, Shawn has been all up in my business since he joined the Java at the start of the year.”

  


Shawn had the grace to let out an embarrassed laugh but quickly slipped into the back room behind their counter before Ava could grill him. From the banging and crashing of metal that followed, Tara could only hope he was loading the dishwasher and not starting a one-man band. Ava sipped her coffee but didn’t budge, apparently watching Tara scribble was enough entertainment for her. It took a further three coffees and two hours before she finally vacated her seat and the cafe.

  


In their favourite little Italian restaurant, on the following Wednesday’s date night, Ava began to act strangely. Her black eyes darted about the warm room as though afraid to fall still. Her hands, clenched into fists, were tucked into her elbows. Tara shifted awkwardly in her seat as she took notice of her girlfriend’s strange behaviour.

  


Their starters had been great - the same choices they always made. But in between their second round of breadsticks and their main dishes, a figure had stolen Ava’s attention. They were sat at the table adjacent to the pair, roughly six feet of carpeted gap away. They were dressed slouchily, in loose-fitting jeans and a hoodie that swamped them, disguising their figure.

  


Tara couldn’t get a clear look at the person’s face beneath the shadow of their hood, but if they could tell that Tara was scrutinising them, they clearly were not bothered by it. They continued to spoon soup into the dark cavern that hid their features, their arm moving the spoon back and forth methodically, robotically.

  


“Are you okay?” Tara murmured, lowering her eyes as she did so as not to draw attention to her words.

  


“Fine,” Ava grunted.

  


“O-okay.”

  


The wet slurp and metal clank of the stranger’s spoon was the only sound permeating their tense bubble for a few minutes. Neither Ava nor Tara took another bite of bread, but Tara got the impression that those demon super-powers may be in use. She hadn’t worked out a full and comprehensive list of Ava’s special abilities but sometimes she could just… feel… that they were in use. The burn of Ava’s concentration pressing against her like a heatwave.

  


Eventually, the waiter wandered over with their main dishes, plopping them onto the red tablecloth cheerfully and they thanked him quietly. The tense air surrounding them had no effect on the young man’s bouncy demeanour. He bumbled away, with free hands, blissfully unaware of the silent stand-off going on between Ava and the mystery person.

  


They ate in silence. For the first time ever, Ava didn’t request the dessert menu. They paid swiftly and without fuss. Usually Ava and Tara would fight over who paid but the sizzling glare that Ava gave her when the card machine approached kept Tara deadly still. Once their coats were on (and Tara’s fluffy pom pom scarf), they vacated the restaurant and Ava led them a few metres from the front door with stamping strides.

  


She halted so hard Tara almost head-butted her back.

  


Ava swung round and pulled her in close by the collar of her coat to mumble into her chilly ears, “I know we were supposed to have our week together starting tonight, but I’m going to need to cancel for now.”

  


The bargain from their face-off with the stool: a week spent at Ava’s with Tara wearing nothing but lingerie (picked out by her devious demon girlfriend) and shower sex where Tara had to… touch herself while Ava watched. As mortified as she had been when Ava had first made her demands, now that they had planned it, taken time off work and bought the sexy underwear… she was more than a little hurt to be cancelled on. Her duffle bag was packed and waiting in her living room for them to swing by after their date night and pick it up.

  


“Oh. That’s okay,” she mumbled. She hadn’t had enough time to hide her disappointment, it was probably caked all over her face.

  


“I’m really sorry, and it’s not anything to do with you,” Ava reassured her, taking her round face between her palms and squeezing her cheeks affectionately. “Something has come up that I need to sort out. Personal stuff.”

  


“Sure, I understand.”

  


“I need to get going. I’m sorry, but please text me when you get home.”

  


Tara’s mouth popped open a little as she realised her girlfriend wouldn’t be walking her back to her flat. “Oh, um, sure,” she babbled.

  


Ava had never let her walk anywhere alone while she was there to accompany her. Cancelling on her was one thing, but to be so desperate to get away from her that she would not escort her home had almost sent Tara into shock. Was the hooded figure an ex? One that Ava wanted another chance with? Was she worried to be seen with Tara in case this mystery person could get the right idea about their relationship and the wrong solution?

  


Ava gave her hand a lightning-fast squeeze and turned away, stalking into the night. Tara hovered for a few moments outside the restaurant, apparently struggling to function without a goodbye kiss.

  


She dawdled for a few minutes, making absolutely sure that Ava really wasn’t coming back, that she was serious about depriving Tara of a sayonara smooch. Then she tottered home, mildly disorientated, and relayed the night to Daisy who was almost as upset as she was - Daisy had been expecting to have the flat to herself for a week. Apparently, all the wine in the crate by the fridge was for a get-together she was planning… They cracked into a bottle each and moaned about every aspect of their lives until they slurred and then slipped into sleep on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Rebelrsr for beta-reading! The best as always! <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much to Rebelrsr for beta-reading this chapter! <3

Nine days, elven hours, and a handful of minutes without Ava. No physical contact, no video chat, no phone calls… a pair of cryptic texts were all Tara had to survive off. Shawn had called in sick the morning after Tara got left outside alone and had yet to reappear, except to send dramatic claims of his vomit prowess (apparently his projectile record was now six feet). She may be human, but she was no fool. Tara didn’t think for a moment that his sick leave wasn’t connected to Ava’s silent treatment.

She had only been mulling over her dire love life every waking moment since their parting. It was only consuming all her spare thoughts. She was okay. She was a grown-up, and she could handle heartache. The limbo was frustrating though, the nothingness, the silence. But she could make it through. It would all make sense soon. She just had to wait. Then her obsessive phone-checking could stop, and her brain would let her focus on something else, anything but the absence of Ava.

Their newest team member tapped the counter beside her, bringing her back to the present, standing at the till of an almost-empty Jessi’s Java.

“Your shift ended a few minutes ago, Tara,” she said.

Tara sighed. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Dawdling on her walk back home, Tara was not paying a great deal of attention to her surroundings. This was a walk she took twice a day, five days a week. And perhaps her brain had once again returned to the last few moments she spent with Ava, breaking down every scrap of information she could remember to piece together even a hint as to what was going on. She had so far deduced a big fat nothing. So when a hand snatched her by the knee-length pastel purple sweater dress she was swamped in, her body was yanked along with it, feet a few inches from the floor. Her back hit the grimy brick wall of the alleyway she had landed in. Ava’s face leant over her with a stern expression.

“We need to talk,” she said, her tone dark.

“Y-yes, we do!” Tara agreed breathlessly.

It was surreal seeing her face again when she wasn’t expecting it. Partly shrouded under a grey hoodie, it didn’t quite match the version in her head that Tara had been aching for, the one that smirked at her like she always held a secret on the tip of her tongue.

“But I don’t have much time.”

Tara could almost laugh with incredulity at her girlfriend’s words, if she weren’t so furious. “You’re too busy for me?”

“Not busy. Cautious.” Every word she spoke was blunt, bludgeoning Tara between her eyes.

“Well, I have a lot to say!” she yelped, although despite her best effort, she could not match Ava’s firm tone, could not take control of the conversation. She felt like an audience member in the interaction, as though she were not included in the discussion.

“And I would love to listen, but I don’t have time. I’m sorry.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Deadly.”

Tara’s face burned with a combination of anger and embarrassment at being shut down so simply. “How…” her mouth fumbled for a moment and her cold fingers clenched and unclenched. “How dare you!” she snapped. “How bloody rude-”

“We need to end this. Now.”

Tara spluttered, but could not form a single solid word.

“I am not trying to hurt you and I know this is terrible timing.” Ava huffed to herself, blowing a strand of hair that had escaped the hoodie from her face in the process. “This is not how I would want to do this if I had the choice, but I genuinely don’t have one.”

“I… I don’t understand this at all. Things were going better than ever. I thought you wanted to be with me!”

“That is what I wanted- I mean, what I want. Tara, please trust that I do want to be with you. I just can’t right now.”

“Why? You can’t just leave me without a reason!”

“I have to, it’s for your own good.”

“I’m a grown woman! I can decide what is best for me, now tell me!”

“You are a _human_ woman!” Ava snarled, her nose brushing Tara’s. “You cannot fathom the depths of horror and pain that there is to experience. Nothing in your plane of existence can compare to the evil that breeds in the outer realms! Do you understand that I couldn’t bear to see you with a cold, let alone-” she cut herself off with a ragged exhale of breath. She pulled back, her eyes wild and searching for something across Tara’s face, behind her head, out into the distance.

“Ava,” Tara whispered.

“Please, trust me, Tara.”

“But you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone or any thing.”

Tara stammered, “What do I do now?” Searching Ava’s eyes for help, a lifeline of some kind as she felt herself being cast adrift.

“You keep your routine, you go to work, you go home, you spend time with your friends, you avoid being left alone and avoid anyone unfamiliar.”

“I meant about my broken heart, you emotionless bitch!”

Ava raised her dark brows at the expletive, gripped Tara’s forearms tightly and pulled her onto her tip-toes so that she could murmur into her ear, “I’m sorry to hurt you. That’s not my intention but this is for your own good. I do love you.”

“If you loved me you wouldn’t treat me like a child,” Tara seethed, her eyes prickling with hot tears. She jerked away and Ava released her hold without hesitation.

“Don’t contact me,” Ava ordered. She left briskly and without looking back. But Tara looked, and Ava’s face was smooth and blank, not a hint of feeling to be garnered from it.

Once every part of her was out of view, Tara leant back against the damp bricks and felt the skin around her eyes throb. Crying in an alleyway was not on her list of fun and exciting things to do in town, but despite her violent sniffs, the first tear fell. She was unsure if she was more hurt by the impending loneliness or the humiliation of being tossed aside so quickly and efficiently. People donated their old clothes to charity shops with more sentimentality and fanfare than she had just been dumped. She barely remembered the journey home, but she would never forget Daisy’s reaction when she relayed the events of the afternoon in stomach-squeezing detail. It was a miracle that Tara was physically capable of keeping her best friend from attempting murder. If they hadn’t had a fresh bottle of wine in the kitchen, she may not have stood a chance.

Tara called in ‘sick’ the following day, although did not advise her colleagues that she was suffering from a cocktail of hangover and heartbreak. Shawn mysteriously recovered enough to work her shift but was instantly back to being bedridden afterwards. She did not bother to question him; she doubted these demons deemed her deserving of a genuine answer anyway. She was a silly little human. With a silly little life and a silly little routine that she had been ordered to follow by a demon she had stupidly thought had loved her.

Keeping her routine. Was she succeeding at that? She accomplished nothing during the day and slept in short unsatisfying bursts at night. It had been a week and she had loped from home to work and back again in a zombie-like state every day. Often forgetting to put her headphones on as she walked now, allowing her empty head to be filled only with the sound of the light rain pattering over her hair and face.

On one such grey journey, a sugary, syrup-like voice called out to her.

“Hey, honey, what’s your name?”

Tara paused in the centre of the pavement and turned to look beside her where a woman had appeared at her side. Wide caramel-brown eyes were watching her through thickly curled lashes.

“Sorry?” Tara mumbled, desperately clawing through her brain for some semblance of recognition. Perhaps she was a customer or an old work colleague… Tara highly doubted they attended any schools together.

“I’m a friend of Ava’s.” Every word she spoke seemed to drip from her slightly pointed tongue at its own, sweet, slow pace. “My name’s Bee.” A small part of Tara was unnerved at just how mesmerised she felt listening to her voice.

“Oh, hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Tara croaked out, her mouth seemingly dried out all of a sudden. Hearing Ava’s name had hit her like a needle to the neck, a poison dart slowly paralysing her. Bee’s smooth tone was not helping her stay alert, either.

“You, too,” Bee cooed. She waited, watching Tara with a soft smile.

Tara blinked slowly.

My name, she thought. She wanted to know my name.

“My name’s Tara.”

With an exaggerated blink of her intense lashes, Bee smiled serenely. “How pretty,” she said gently. “It matches your face.”

“Th-thank you.”

“I can see why Ava became so attached to you.”

“Well, not anymore, I guess,” Tara said with an attempt to appear buoyant, that she could poke fun at her own sad love life and not cry. She really was doing her best to stay upbeat.

“Oh?” Sympathy slid like a thick sludge from her mouth. Tara could feel herself being buried in it.

“We broke up recently,” she offered, unsure why she was being so open and forthcoming. The words simply slipped from her lips. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you, she might have wanted to let you know herself…”

“Don’t you worry, honey, I won’t say anything to her.” Bee stretched an arm around her waist and pulled her into a tender hug. They were a similar height, although Bee much slimmer and very fragile looking. She was a dainty little doll, every movement and word was lovely. “That’s so disappointing though, I had never seen her so happy!”

“Really?”

“Of course! Why don’t you let me buy you a hot drink and you can tell me what happened. I’m sure it’s all a silly mistake.”

“Um, I don’t know about that…”

“Come now, you work in a cafe, don’t you? I’m sure you know your comfort coffee - where is good to go round here?”

“I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful,” Tara began quietly. “But how do you know where I work?”

“Ava mentioned it, of course!”

“But she didn’t tell you my name…” Tara whispered, more to herself than Bee.

“I probably forgot, it’s hard to keep up with your friends and their lovers. Don’t take it personally, my sweet.”

“Sure,” Tara responded blandly, her brain hard at work trying to process this conversation while a sweet, cloying fog filled her head.

“Let’s get cozy and have a chat, darling,” Bee cooed, dragging her smoothly towards the front door of a nearby coffee house competitor. Tara allowed herself to be corralled, her limbs clouding with a numbness that threatened to drop her to the concrete at any moment. Perhaps a seat and a shot of caffeine was what she needed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much as always to Rebelrsr for beta-reading! <3

Zip ties cutting sharply into Tara’s wrists and ankles were a welcome slice of clarity in the fog of her mind. At times they were the only tangible connection between the inside and outside of her body. When she became overwhelmed. When she was no longer a being but a jumbled string of thoughts. They were the only sensation she managed to cling onto as she sunk further and further into the thick mucus that was swallowing her up.

Bee’s voice enveloped her, sliding over her brain like slime.

“Give me more, sweet Tara,” she said. “I know you’re holding back.”

Tara was trapped. Imprisoned in her own mind. Her skull pressing in on her and bringing a heavy sensation of claustrophobia. She was vaguely aware that her body was in a dark room, but the link between body and mind had frayed and she could only hone in on the zip ties and Bee. Bee’s voice smothering her.

“I don’t…” To speak was surreal. Was her voice leaving her throat or was she simply imagining the words and Bee was reading them from her skull like a fleshy flashcard? “I don’t know anything els-”

“Oh, honey.” She stretched the ‘o’ and the ‘y’ out like taffy, her voice deepening a little in amused indignation. “The lies you tell.”

Pressure was applied to her brain again, cat-like claws kneading the soft tissue. She had already said too much. She should not have answered any of Bee’s questions, even the easy ones from the very beginning.

The beginning? How long ago was the beginning?

“I am sure you have some more juicy little bites for me. I can feel you attempting to deceive me.” Bee giggled sweetly. The sound roiled a sickening feeling inside of Tara. “It is very sweet of you to try, though.”

“Not… trusted,” Tara slurred.

“Now, why wouldn’t Ava trust a cutie pie like you?” There was an almost sultry tone to her words.

“Ava trusts no one. Ava… trusts nothing.”

“She trusted you enough to tell you what she is, did she not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, but you do.”

“We… broke… up”

“And before that, you were lovers, no?” She filled the word ‘lovers’ with such intensity that Tara felt her already broken heart fracture a little more. She missed Ava. She missed being held and caressed and completely overtaken by pleasure. Intoxicating desire and pure obsession with each other that would halt time around them.

“I love Ava,” Tara whimpered. Her body jerked, whether of her own accord she was unsure, and the zip ties dug into her skin again. Bringing sensation back to the rest of her skin, even if only briefly. She could feel her clothes pressing against her again, her earrings pulling on her earlobes, her necklace pressing against her chest.

“I know, honey.” A hand drifted over the thick cornrows that led to her twisting bun. It was both comforting and threatening.

Tara pulled in a shaky breath and attempted to wiggle her fingers, but she could not tell if anything had happened. “It hurts,” she whispered brokenly.

“Mmm,” Bee hummed as she continued to stroke the sharp tips of her nails over Tara’s scalp. “Tell me where it hurts, my sweet.”

“My heart. My eyes. My tummy. Inside, everywhere inside.”

“It will hurt less if you talk about it, sugar.” Bee sighed sympathetically and slid her hands down Tara’s temples, her cheeks, cupping her under the chin and tilting her head up. “Tell me everything,” she said quietly.


	12. Chapter 12

Tara awoke slowly, the gelatinous film clinging to her mind ebbing away in chunks.

Patchy, cloudy memories swirled through her, partly obscured as she strained for more detail. She could tell the lack of clarity was not due to the age of the scenes. They were recent recollections, but fuzzy for another reason. Alcohol? Possibly. Drugs? Unless it was paracetamol, Tara didn’t take it. A knock to her noggin? There was no pain registering throughout any part of her body so far. She groaned groggily, grateful for the feeling of her pillow beneath her head and blankets upon her body. Her eyes only made it halfway open before she allowed them to collapse shut again.

A face painted itself behind her eyes with slow, splattering stroked. Large circles filled with sticky caramel, brown lines coiling from them. Plump curves running round the features that were sketching themselves into her view. Recognition tickled at her, prickling at the wafer-thin skin of her eyelids.

Bee. Sweet, cloying, sticky Bee.

Tara’s breath caught in her throat.

With sugary words and an intoxicating presence, Bee had coaxed Tara into a stupor. It wasn’t just her sweet looks and kind comments, though. Tara was certain. She was not the type to follow a stranger like a puppy dog. Even with Ava she had been wary of until Shawn had encouraged her. There was something sickly, a fog that surrounded Bee and that had penetrated Tara’s mind. The aftertaste of it reminded Tara of the strange lingering feeling she got when Ava used her demon abilities around her. Like an image that appears in the corner of your eye, but you can’t focus on it no matter how hard you try.

Finally, she had to admit what she had clocked from the moment she gained semi-consciousness back in her bedroom, that Bee was one of the demons that Ava and Shawn had warned her about. What were they called? Enforcers? She had been led astray, or maybe more tugged away, by a demon. She groaned again, louder and more gutturally as she allowed her frustration out noisily.

She knew she had to let Ava know. As much as her ex-girlfriend had shunned her and broken her tender little human heart, she would never wish any harm to her. And allowing herself to be swept up in Bee’s charm had definitely put Ava in more danger. She pulled her phone from where it lay on her bedside table but was shocked into stillness when she saw the date and time glowing from the screen.

She had met Bee while walking home from her shift yesterday just after four in the afternoon. It was now ten… in the morning. Her shift had begun two hours ago, and she had a very concerned cluster of texts from the team member that opened Jessi’s Java that morning, who was awaiting her arrival for backup. She sent a rushed, typo-filled, message to them to say she was sick and had overslept with a fever. Then she moved onto Ava.

_Tara: I met a woman who I think is like you. Her name is Bee and I think she messed with my head. My memory has turned to goop for the last twelve hours or so. I remember she wanted to talk about you though. I thought I should warn you._

The reply was close to instant. Tara was surprised Ava’s phone could keep up with her super speedy fingers.

_Ava: Thank you. What did you tell her?_

_Tara: I don’t remember. That’s why I’m scared. My brain is foggy._

_Ava: What is the last thing you remember?_

_Tara: She pulled me into a cafe, we had coffee and she was asking about our relationship. I kept telling her we had broken up and I wasn’t in contact with you._

_Ava: Bad that you let her touch you. Good that you told her we aren’t connected. Anything after that?_

_Tara: Why is it bad that she touched me? And after that she offered to walk me home and I said I was fine, but I don’t remember anything between that and getting to my bed._

_Ava: Touch makes it easier for her to use her special persuasion on you. It’s like that for all of us, we can work from a distance, but we get stronger up close._

_Tara: Special persuasion?_

_Ava: I am avoiding certain words, Tara, you don’t know who is looking over your shoulder or monitoring your device._

_Tara: I am in my bedroom, there’s no one here._

_Ava: That is absolutely not guaranteed._

_Tara: Are you deliberately trying to scare me? That’s not funny._

_Ava: You should be scared. I don’t joke._

Tara sat motionless, unsure how to respond. Was it better to be reassured and live in ignorant bliss or have to face a terrifying reality? Apparently, Ava believed in the latter.

_Ava: Stay away from her. If you see her, run. Don’t contact me or Shawn unless she reappears. Avoid us and her at all costs._

Her phone screen was shaking so badly she could hardly read Ava’s additional text. Tara suddenly realised it was her hands that were trembling, not the phone. She wasn’t sure if she was shaking with worry for Ava, knowing someone seemed to be hunting her, or out of fear for herself, realising she was being left alone to fend for herself until Bee reappeared again. How would she know though? How would she know if a demon was spying on her or even following her in the street?

She got up, dressed (she was too scared to get in the shower and be ambushed while wet and naked), and spent the entire day shuffling from room to room in her apartment and jolting at every noise or movement. The relief when Daisy arrived home from work almost brought out the waterworks in Tara. She flew at her roommate and clung to her like a bushbaby before she had even had the chance to shake off her umbrella.

“Tara?” Daisy said slowly. “You okay, babe?”

“No,” Tara whispered.

“Okay, let me get changed and we can chat over tea.”

Once the tea had been brewed and pajamas donned, Tara couldn’t bring herself to tell her best friend the truth. She was fairly certain Daisy would not believe her tale of demons and angels even if she did find a way to spit the words out. Instead she wove a bogus story of having a panic attack that morning and being unable to rid herself of the anxiety all day.

“Oh, Tara,” Daisy murmured, pulling her close and raking her short nails through Tara’s hair soothingly. “I’m so sorry, why didn’t you text me? I would have come home early if I had known. I didn’t know you had anxiety either, is that new? Do you think it’s a knock-on from the break-up?”

“Maybe… I just feel like I’m being watched.”

“Watched by Ava?”

Her roommate had no idea how realistic that actually was.

“No- I- I don’t know.” Tara rubbed her sore eyes. “Don’t worry about it, I just need to get my shit together.”

Daisy exhaled through her nose disapprovingly. “If you have anxiety, shrugging it off will make it worse, Tara.”

“You’re right, but I’m not ready to deal with it,” Tara said, standing and putting away the teacups and saucers.

“I understand, I’m here to talk when you want to, love.”

“Thank you,” Tara mumbled. “You’re the best.”

They hugged hard and Tara struggled to breathe for a few seconds as her fear for herself split, multiplying into fear for everyone that she loved. It filled her like sticky tar, clinging to her insides and bringing a panic bubbling up her throat. She said good night and slipped away as quickly as she could. She cried in bed as quietly as she could.

The next day, Tara returned to work. The safest thing she could do was follow her routine as Ava had told her to. Perhaps normalcy, even fake normalcy, would help keep her nerves under control. Would help her stop running through every possible awful scenario in her mind.

That afternoon, a tall and slender man approached the counter.

“Welcome to Jessi’s Java, what can I get you?” She asked with a forced smile.

His eyes were a cold blue, cutting into her without hesitation.

“Hello. I am not here for coffee.”

An electrifying sensation crawled over her skin.

Before she could respond, he continued, “My name is Mr. Ramiel and I understand you have had dealings with a group of fugitives I am investigating.”

“I don’t know any fugitives!” Tara yelped, her scandalised body language was not completely fake.

“You were working with one, sleeping with another and making frequent visits to the most recent residence of the third.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Where is the creature known as Shawn?”

She opened her mouth without a lie prepared, intending to blag as best she could on the fly. Not one of her special skills but it did not appear that she had a choice. Luckily, her guardian angel arrived in the form of an irritable eighteen-year-old before she could begin blathering. Becca, their newest addition to the Jessi’s Java team and already their colleague with the biggest attitude, strode to the counter and bumped Tara’s hip with her own.

“Everything okay up here?” Her regular resting bitch face appeared to be daring Mr. Ramiel to give her an answer that would give her reason to switch to her high-grade stink face.

“I demand any information you have regarding the man known as Shawn.”

Becca scoffed at the word ‘demand’. “We had a man who worked here called Shawn, but he quit just over a week ago,” she said.

“And where is he now?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t even quit in person, he resigned by text. Not that this is any of your business. So unless you have an order to make, or a warrant to declare, I suggest you go about your bullshit elsewhere.”

The man hesitated, possibly weighing up his chances against a sassy teenager. He looked to be in his thirties, fit but not bulging with muscle, tall and with a very stern face. Becca was just a little taller than Tara and slim but no doubt scrappy. Tara would probably put money on Becca if she didn’t have the prickling sensation that this man was not of their realm. He and Bee had auras that felt to Tara like opposite ends of the same supernatural spectrum. Mr Ramiel stepped back, giving Tara a firm look that promised a future encounter, and turned and left.

“Shawn quit?!” Tara breathed, right into Becca’s ear. She could not take any chances allowing that strange man to hear her.

Becca rolled her eyes and snorted out a laugh. “No, he’s pulling a ridiculously long sickie, but that guy looked like bad news. If I told him Shawn was only temporarily away, he would come back.”

“You lie far too easily for someone so young,” Tara said disapprovingly.

“And you’re way too naive for someone so old!”

“I am twenty-four!”

“That’s four years past ancient.”

“Thanks for the pick-me-up, Becca.”

“Any time, grandma T.”

Tara rolled her eyes and slipped into the back to text Ava, she would definitely need to know about this incident as well.

_Tara: Another person like you tried to talk to me. At work. He was really pushy and scary._

It took seconds for Ava’s response to arrive to her phone.

_Ava: What did he ask?_

_Tara: It was less what he asked and more what he already knew. He was just announcing things about you and Shawn and Imogen and I did my best to play dumb._

_Ava: is he still there?_

_Tara: No._

_Ava: We need to talk. I need to know what he knows. What time does your shift end?_

For a moment, a pained voice in the back of her mind asked if she was ready to face her ex so soon. It would hurt, but this was about personal safety for both of them. As she had told Daisy the night before, she needed to get her shit together.

_Tara: 5._

_Ava: I’ll be at the back waiting for you. Make sure to leave alone._

_Tara: Ok._

The hands on the rustic-style clock hanging on the far wall of the coffee house crawled towards five and twelve, maddening Tara every time she peeked up to calculate how much longer she had to wait until she would see Ava.

“Antsy today, aren’t we?” Becca asked with a knowing smile. “Got a hot date tonight or something?”

Tara flushed. “Oh, no,” she said with a wave of her hand and an awkward laugh. “Just not feeling one-hundred-percent still.”

Becca shrugged, although she appeared disappointed, and wandered away to clean tables.

When five finally arrived, Becca smacked Tara’s butt with a tea towel like a painful alarm clock and nodded to the time with a grin. Tara yelped and jumped out of her reach.

“Thanks, Becca,” she said. “I had noticed, but it’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”

“Always, T.”

In the back alley, a hooded figure was waiting for her. For the briefest of paranoid seconds, Tara was unsure if it were Ava under the oversized clothing. Another supernatural being? Another person looking to question her? Well, Ava was supposed to be there for information too…

“Hey,” said Ava, pulling the hood back just enough to show her face - dark eyes, straight hair and sharp-edged features. A blended wave of relief and heartache smacked Tara in the chest, leaving a soggy, clinging sensation on her skin.

Tara stepped closer but did not reciprocate the greeting. “Before you start the interrogation,” she said. “I need answers about what’s going on. You can’t just come here to grill me and then disappear again.”

“I don’t have time to educate you on how much danger we are both in,” Ava hissed so quietly that Tara barely caught the words. She looked to the mouth of the alleyway where it joined the main road, checking for onlookers. It was empty as far as her human eyes could see.

“You owe me an explanation!” Tara snapped, attempting to keep her voice as quiet as possible.

“Tara, listen to me.” Ava glanced back and forth jumpily. “I have been living this life within this realm for just over 3 years and I have never felt afraid like this. If I am scared, you should be to.”

“But, why now? Why are the-”

“Because I got too comfortable and I slipped up.”

“Slipped up?”

“You are the only mistake I’ve ever made and now I have to stay low or-”

“I’m a mistake?” Tara breathed, her eyes prickling.

“What?” Ava blurted distractedly, her eyes still scanning everywhere but Tara’s face. “No! You are not a mistake. The mistake is that we’ve been noticed. I don’t usually let relationships run this long or this deep, Tara, because now I have to worry about you as well. The mistake is giving them a second, far more fragile, target to aim at in order to take me down.”

“Down?”

“Down.” She pointed at the ground, her expression grave.

“They’re going to kill you?!” Tara gasped.

“Hell, Tara, they’ll take me back to Hell. I can’t die, I don’t have a soul to lose.”

“So what do we do now?”

“ _We_ don’t do anything. How many times do I have to tell you that we cannot face this together? I have to go into hiding and you go back to your normal human li-”

“It is too late for that!” Tara cried, angrily. She had been hurt, she had been upset, she had been scared, now she was angry.

“Tara I-”

But Tara was tired of being spoken down to. Human or not, she deserved a chance to make her feelings known. “They know where I live, they know where I work, they know exactly what kind of relationships I had with you, Shawn and Imogen. I am already a part of this, please don’t cast me adrift to deal with it alone. I didn’t sleep at all last night and spent all day yesterday filled with paranoia. I couldn’t shower out of fear of someone being behind the curtain. I couldn’t listen to music or watch TV for fear of missing the sound of someone approaching. I don’t blame you for me being involved in this, but I am angry that you are now acting like everything will be okay if you leave me to take care of myself. Take some responsibility!”

The silence of the night, of the dead main street adjacent to them, hovered between the women for a few moments. Tara’s breathing was ragged from her outburst and her heart was pounding in her ears.

Ava grabbed her cheeks, squishing them between her index fingers and thumbs, and pulling her close. “I’m so sorry you have been dragged into this,” she said softly, her lips moving against Tara’s forehead. “I’m sorry I put you in danger, and then doubled that danger by leaving you. I’m sorry for the fear that you’ve had to face. I’m sorry and I love you.”

“I love you too, and I’m scared,” Tara rasped, fighting sobs.

Ava whispered, “I’m scared too, Tiara.”

“What do _we_ do?” Tara said again, saying each word firmly and with a short pause between them.

“We go to our safe house and lay very, very low.”

Tara asked, “now?” with wide eyes.

“Now.”

“Daisy is going to kill me,” Tara mumbled.

“Why?”

“She’s really mad at you.”

“Understandable. Please send her my apologies. But after you message her, you’re going to need to turn your phone off so it can’t be tracked.”

Tara nodded and sent a hurried and messy text to her best friend letting her know she would be staying with Ava for a bit and wouldn’t be responding to messages for a while. She didn’t want to think of the scolding she was going to be lashed with when they were reunited. She turned her phone off and slipped it into her bag.

“Ready to ride?” Ava asked quietly.

“I don’t see a car.”

Ava squatted suddenly and swung Tara over her shoulder by the knees. Tara squeaked but had the air quickly knocked out of her when Ava took off at full speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-read by the magnificent Rebelrsr <3


	13. Chapter 13

Tara found herself struggling to live comfortably in the safe house within minutes of arriving.

The underground bunker was pretty spacious, clean, and the company was as good as one could hope for. Imogen was quiet and conscientious, Shawn loud and mood-lifting, and Ava was herself mostly… with a slight nervous edge to her attitude. However, the bunker was built for supernatural beings. Tara could not open doors by herself, she could not lift chairs, she could not open food cans. Everything was made to be practically indestructible and heavy enough to be used as a weapon or shield. Oh, and there was little light to be found, especially in the area closest to the only exit, and she was the only member of the quartet that needed light to see. She did her best not to complain or make a fuss, she was just glad to be there, to feel relatively safe. There was a mild comfort to be taken in the multi-toned grey that coated every inch of the safe house, she supposed.

On day three, the group was sat about the common area eating from tin cans (Tara was fairly certain they kept up the pretense of eating and sleeping on a human schedule for her benefit) when Tara decided to bring up what she could already feel was going to be a sore topic.

“When do we know it is safe to leave?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could.

“We wait a set number of days, usually our organisation says twenty-one, and then we send out a signal to have another member of our group check out all of our common locations such as workplaces, our homes, restaurants or bars we visit,” explained Imogen, slowly and gently as she always spoke.

Twenty-one days. Tara’s body had frozen with spoon halfway to her mouth. She was glad her rent was paid automatically from her account or Daisy would be fucked. But would her wages up to the day she disappeared be enough to cover it? She shook her head. Why was her rent at the forefront of her mind when she could face being murdered? She supposed it was more for Daisy’s sake that she was worrying than her landlord being six-hundred pounds short.

“If the locations are all deemed secure, we return to our lives with added caution and care. The first few months especially you must keep your eyes and ears primed for anything unusual.”

“And if they’re not?” Tara dug around in her tin to keep her hands moving. “Safe, I mean.”

“We relocate.”

“Do the enforcers move on after a certain time and look in other towns for… runaways? Or would Bee and Mr. Ramiel be assigned to look for anyone in this area? Or are they looking specifically for you three?”

Before Imogen could answer, Shawn’s head snapped up.

“Did you just say Ramiel?” he asked tensely.

Ava’s brows pulled together with concern and slight fear. “You know him?” Perhaps it was because of how much longer Shawn had spent as an Earth-residing fugitive that Ava looked so worried about anyone he would know by name, or perhaps it was Shawn’s own wide eyes that were scaring her as they were Tara.

“He’s an angel enforcer. Infamous. He was one of the main enforcers that chased me out of Italy. I thought you said we were dealing with a demon? A bounty hunter?”

Tara swallowed the cold lump of meatball in her mouth despite her throat tightening at his words and began to explain herself with stammering words.

Ava cut her off with a half-raised hand and said, “Bee is a demon. I could sense her presence on Tara after she interrogated her. She was cloaking herself when she stalked us at dinner but I’m pretty sure that was her too.”

“I thought they were a team, part of the same group or something,” Tara mumbled.

With a pained groan, Shawn confirmed what Tara could tell the women had been silently fearing. “They are definitely not, and that means we are doubly fucked.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tara whispered. “I had no idea.”

Ava said, “It’s not your fault, Tiara.” It did not lift any of the guilt from her shoulders though.

“I wish I’d said more sooner.”

With a defiant shake of her head, Ava replied, “It’s my fault, I was so eager to get us here quickly I forgot to fully question you about the man you texted me about.”

Shawn placed his food down on the table beside his chair carefully. “Tell me everything from start to finish about your encounter with him,” he ordered.

Tara straightened in her own seat and began recounting the day to the best of her knowledge. When she was finished, Shawn said nothing except a short thanks and then left. He, Imogen and Ava had a private tactical meeting later that day that Tara was not privy to. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any more about Mr. Ramiel anyway.

That night, Tara and Ava laid together on the single sofa in the common room. Imogen and Shawn were in their assigned cupboard-sized sleeping rooms. Tara reckoned they were not sleeping, just taking some private time to read or think or generally just get away from Tara and Ava’s snuggling. She wouldn’t blame them for being uninterested in watching a couple being affectionate when they were fearing for their lives. Or at least, the lives they had been living in this realm. As Ava had said, they couldn’t die. But there were other things to fear besides death.

Tara sighed to herself, drawing a curious glance from Ava, whose torso she was balanced on (far more comfortable that the metal frame of the sofa with a few thin, measly pillows layered across it). “I feel weak and helpless here,” Tara said, answering the unspoken question.

“We all feel like that trapped up in this place,” Ava assured her, “like a rabbit hiding in a hole.”

“At least you can get the doors open.”

“I’m sorry, love.”

She stroked her fingers over Tara’s hair and Tara let her eyes slide closed and a hum leave her lips. Another pair were upon hers instantly, demanding entrance with firm kisses. Tara’s eyes flew open and she giggled at the absurdity that Ava could be in the mood for anything more than cuddling at a time like this. In a place like this.

That did not stop her kissing back, sliding her hands over Ava’s tightly muscled upper arms and craving that strength be used against her. Perhaps this was a good place do this, rubbing in the noses of the enforcers that they were together and alive and could still screw like bunnies any time they wanted. How long had it been since her girlfriend had thrown her down and fucked her senseless? Too long. Sometimes even the most delicate of ladies needed to be hammered into while they begged and pleaded for mercy. Ava lifted her hands to squeeze at Tara’s arse and bit her bottom lip simultaneously, drawing a pleased moan out involuntarily. The long fingers quickly dragged down under her smock dress to play with the thin fabric of her underwear. Tara keened into Ava’s mouth.

An awful train of thought barrelled into Tara’s mind, completely unwanted. The possibility that this was not Ava taking advantage of their isolation, finding a way to pass the time, or celebrating the fact that they were still alive and together. What if she was expecting the worst? What if this was her getting in a quick lay with her human girlfriend before the human was killed and she was banished?

Ava, apparently sensing Tara’s anxiety spiral, or at least noticing she wasn’t reciprocating as enthusiastically as she had been a few minutes go, stopped the motion of her hands and pulled back a little.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What?” Tara gasped softly.

“Your whole body froze up; are you not in the mood?”

“I- um, I kissed you back. Of course I’m in the mood,” Tara babbled defensively.

“You can change your mind, Tiara.”

“I’m fine.”

Ava sat still, watching her with inquisitive obsidian eyes.

“Ava, I’m fine.”

“I’m scared, too, you know.”

Tara didn’t respond, but she avoided looking directly into Ava’s face.

“But that doesn’t mean I feel hopeless, or that I am expecting the worst.”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“No,” Ava laughed.

“Be honest, is that one of your superpowers?”

“If it was, I sure as shit wouldn’t tell you. Being able to hear your lover’s thoughts would be awesome.”

Tara snorted and scrubbed her puffy cheeks with her palms to clear her thoughts. She sighed softly to herself. “Don’t stop.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Ava obeyed, pressing her firm tongue into Tara’s small mouth and devouring her. Tara rubbed every bit of her body against Ava’s, working them both up into a tangle of pants and hushed moans.

Those thick arms snaked around her waist as Ava stood, lifting Tara with her, and used their bodies to push shut the door that led into the common room. She pressed Tara against it firmly, never breaking their lips apart.

Tara writhed back against Ava’s body, her bare thighs settling either side of Ava’s slightly lifted knee that she was balanced on. The impenetrable door pressed against her delicate human spine but that did not stop her continuing to grind her cunt down on Ava’s thigh. The texture combination of her soft cotton panties and Ava’s rough khakis sent her vulva into a soaked frenzy. She hoped it left a slick, darkened patch on Ava’s leg; the thought turned her on even more. When did she get so territorial? It didn’t matter. She sucked on Ava’s tongue desperately and the stronger woman squeezed at her curves hard enough to bruise.

A metallic thump followed by a rattle from the direction of the bunker’s single entryway froze the pair where they stood. The sound of the first of the three doors leading to the outside world being pried open scraped at Tara’s ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Rebelrsr for beta reading <3 Your guidance is so so so appreciated!


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